How Does Marriage Affect Financial Aid?

[Doc Jay]

Anyone have experience with getting married during school? How did your financial aid package change with a salary from your spouse? Already married students also weigh in, maybe we can compare with non-marrieds to determine how it causes an effect on grants, loan percentage rates, etc. By the way, reporting my mother's income only helped me, as she has a losing small business. I am only afraid the grants will go down, but not certain how much.
Thanks

p.s. Sorry this is a cross post, but realized placing it here will proabably be more applicable.

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[FDoRoML]

It's funny how having a spouse can not help you for fin aid, only hurt you. So, if you had a spouse who wasn't working, they offer no aid to help you support her/him. And if you have a spouse who does work, it pretty much eliminates need-based stuff (but won't effect the Stafford distribution). All grad/med/dental/etc students are considered "independent" of parents... so even though your parental income being low may help you in UG, it probably won't change your grad loan distribution. Now, for private grants and scholarships that are need-based, this may be different (they consider parental stuff)... but having a working spouse will probably still penalize your need-based aid.

PS: I'm married... so, all loans for me. He makes enough to not put us in the need-based category but not enough that we could use part of his income to pay for school. Welcome to middle America, everyone! 🙄

 

[yadayadadude]

Having a spouse can help if they're a full-time student too. My partner is a PhD student on a fellowship which pays (full) tuition and a stipend. But, because there are two students in my family, my EFC is divided in half! I get more (institutional) grants, even though we aren't paying any tuition for him. It's a weird loophole, and doesn't seem quite right, but I figure, as long as I'm answering every question on the FAFSA as honestly as I can, it's all good.

It's true though, that your EFC will shoot up if you have a spouse who works. But that seems only fair to me.

 

[Scottish Chap]

Anyone have experience with getting married during school? How did your financial aid package change with a salary from your spouse? Already married students also weigh in, maybe we can compare with non-marrieds to determine how it causes an effect on grants, loan percentage rates, etc. By the way, reporting my mother's income only helped me, as she has a losing small business. I am only afraid the grants will go down, but not certain how much.
Thanks

p.s. Sorry this is a cross post, but realized placing it here will proabably be more applicable.

It really hurts the financial aid package. My wife made big money in her last job and I, too, did well. As such, my school calculated my wife's salary into the equation and she was unable to find employment in the smaller market that we moved to. In addition, my school is not helpful at all with health care benefits and so we essentially had a tiny financial aid award and we still had to pay health care for both of us from that check. I took a part-time job teaching for Kaplan during the year and we used up all our savings. It got so bad that we even had to count on me earning during the summer of MSI and MSII just to keep us afloat....an added incentive not to have to resit any courses during the summer. My wife in now pregnant and I was seriously panicking but we just found out that we'll get all kinds of help next year....a double blessing. In short, in my case, being married was a huge disadvantage in terms of financial aid eligibility....though I wouldn't change that for anything. Med school, after all, doesn't define who I am....we're poor but happy.

 

[FutureTeacher]

Both me and my spouse are full time students. We were both considered independent of our parents prior to marriage. When we got married, our EFC was cut in half making us eligible for need-based aid.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

Both me and my spouse are full time students. We were both considered independent of our parents prior to marriage. When we got married, our EFC was cut in half making us eligible for need-based aid.

How much was your EFC to begin with?

 

[TimR]

How much was your EFC to begin with?

Dumb question... What is EFC?

My wife and I will both be full time students (she will be in a Master's Program and I will be in Dental school) So far we haven't have any need based aid offered. How would I look into that?

 

[FDoRoML]

If you filed the FAFSA you should know your EFC (expected family contribution). If you and your spouse are coming from jobs and starting full-time school, don't expect a miracle unless your aid office is really cool about adjusting your aid report due to your circumstances. I got doubly-screwed this year because I'm entering med school right from work and the FAFSA stuff is based on the prior year's tax info. I can say that if I was single, I may have gotten a little more help when they take loss of income into account (it's up to your school, NOT the feds, to make that call). It all kind of shakes down the same anyway (unless your school has a lot of aid available)... loans R us. 👎

 

[Doc Jay]

Thanks for all of the help. Scottish Chap, wow, good luck and good job struggling through it all.
So to surmise, it will affect my need based aid, which is important to me right now. Anyone have any exact numbers of how the aid changed?
Thanks again.

 

[FutureTeacher]

How much was your EFC to begin with?

The first year I applied, I was working full time in a state job. My EFC was 23,000. So, I took a PT position so that I could attend school full time. That year, my EFC dropped to 8,000. When I got married, they cut my EFC to 4,000 and 4,000 for my spouse.