Advantage of showing as independent in FAFSA

Paying for College
1

<p>My son will be attending medical school next year. He is 20 years old. Do you think showing him as an independent will give him more finacial aid . Please advise.
Thanks</p>

2

<p>Independent students MUST be 24- have a dependent- be a ward of the state- military veteran- married. Oh and working on Masters level degree.
your 20 year old son won’t qualify unless he has been estranged from you for years, he has been providing 100% of his expenses, and you haven’t claimed him as a dependent on tax forms for years
The thing that works best for finaid.
Target schools that meet 100% of need.
Raise your grades and test scores.
Target schools that are slightly a safety.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml[/url]”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>Since he is attending graduate school, can I show him as Independent. I was checking one of the website and it says you can claim a student as independent if student is a graduate/professional student.</p>

4

<p>Hi emeraldkity4 ,
I checked the link you have sent me. Thanks. In that I checked Yes - Will you be working on a degree beyond a bachelor’s degree, such as a master’s or doctorate, in school year 2005-2006?. The result says that you can cliam as Independent.</p>

5

<p>I think that because he will have finished his undergraduate work and going to medical school he may be eligible to apply as an independent student.</p>

<p>Your best bet you be to check the financial aid policies at the various schools he is considering.</p>

<p>For example JHU takes into consideration both the student’s and families financial contribution when calculating financial aid.</p>

6

<p>sorry Ididn’t catch that he was doing post BA work
( got to clean my glasses)</p>

7

<p>Sybbie is right. It varies greatly among graduate schools and professional schools. It also varies among different programs in the same school to make things even more difficult to predict. There are graduate schools that want the parents’ financial statments even if the kids are independent. There is not much aid out there for graduate students, in my experience, unless they get fellowships and stipends which are generally reserved for PHD students. Most graduate students are offered loans for financial aid. I know that my niece and nephew both have loans up the whazoo for medical school.</p>