For non-trads, does current income affect school-specific financial aid calculations? Obviously this income will disappear once enrolled, so is it account for in Parental Contribution, Family Contribution, etc.?
Does Current Income Affect School-Specific Fin Aid?
- Thread starter ace12345
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Sometimes your assets are taken into account, but your families financial status is much more important. If you were earning banking money at 100K+ and saved up a ton of money, you wouldn't expect to be put in the same bracket as a research assistant earning 20k with no savings.
Thank you!
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Are you sure? I'm labeled as independent once I started my grad program and my income seems to be the focus on my FAFSA report and I didn't have to report my parent's income anymore.
Yes but for school-specific aid you do need to report parental information.
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Good to know, thank you. Guess its time to go back to FAFSA now and put in my family's income.
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Whichever school you get into will likely request that you fill out a more thorough financial aid form. The FAFSA is purely for government aid, but the school usually requires their own forms in order to determine who gets grants/institutional loans.
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I'm equally confused about this as well. When I asked one school's finaid office, they said the first year would be based on the previous year's income/tax reports (yours+parents) and that the aid may change for the second year after it reflects that you have indeed quit the job and lost that additional income. AKA you would just receive less aid the first year and be okay for the rest?
But then another school said to just write to them/indicate on the school's forms with any special circumstances - parents about to retire/lose their job, siblings about to matriculate, etc. and they can readjust the school's aid accordingly.
Really banking on getting those need-based scholarships based off my parent's income but with my additional income from work this year that I won't have next year, I don't know if I'll be able to get that much aid.
But then another school said to just write to them/indicate on the school's forms with any special circumstances - parents about to retire/lose their job, siblings about to matriculate, etc. and they can readjust the school's aid accordingly.
Really banking on getting those need-based scholarships based off my parent's income but with my additional income from work this year that I won't have next year, I don't know if I'll be able to get that much aid.
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If you took only a few years off between med and undergrad and were making less than six figures I wouldn't worry about it. There was one school when I applied that said my poor aid package was due to my salary (of less than 40k!) but I think that they were just covering for the fact that their endowment took a big hit that year. Most of the schools that give the best aid recalculate your financial aid package every year so your salary will only count for the first year. This calculation ideally shouldn't change much but can go badly if the endowment performs particularly poorly, and there are some schools that purposely convert grants to loans as you progress through med school, rationalizing that you are older and closer to being able to pay it back. The schools that only calculate your financial aid once, you can always request a recalculation due to change in financial status (schools are not upfront about which ones calculate annually and which don't, you'll have to ask). I don't think that this will affect your ability to take out federal loans at all unless you are independently wealthy.
