how does marriage affect loan repayment and financial aid??

[phomp]

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Hi all! I was wondering if anyone has any information about how marriage affects financial aid for med school.

I just began my fourth year and my partner is starting med school this year. I am planning to do an MPH after graduation and then going into a four year residency. I have been with my partner for four years and we have discussed the possibility of marriage in two years (before my partner starts third year and before I start intern year). We are both somewhat older students so it is my preference that we get married earlier rather than later but still would like to think all of the aspects through before making a decision.

1) How will getting married affect my loan repayment schedule (if at all)? Will I be considered to have MORE financial hardship because of my student partner?

2) Will my being a resident affect my partner's financial aid and loan repayment? I imagine that my being employed (although still very poor) will have a negative effect on eligibility and income based repayment.

thanks very much in advance!

 

[dpmd]

For loan repayment and student aid your incomes will be looked at jointly in the context of a larger family size. So for your loan repayment instead of looking at your 40K or whatever a year and comparing it to the poverty level for a family of one, they will compare it to the poverty level for a family of two. If your AGI is 40K your payment would be $297 if single, but $227 if married.

For student aid things aren't as simple because there isn't a site I can go to with straightforward info. Most people just get loans as there aren't a lot of need based grants for med school. I'm not sure a resident salary would affect subsidized loans much for a family of two. Your attending salary would affect repayment for both of you (they are going to want more money if on income based repayment), but that just means you guys end up paying less interest over the life of the loans.

Benefit would be the ability to claim educational credit while you are in residency and actually have an income and she is still in school. Other benefit will be your loan repayment on IBR after you graduate but before she does might be lower than if it was just you (depends on how much you are making and whether the IBR repayment is less than the standard repayment for your loans at your higher salary-for example, if you don't have a lot of loans your standard payment won't be that much, so at a certain income IBR starts being more than that and you come out of the program)