Please don’t get married because you think you’ll get advantageous aid. So NOT worth it!
Say you get married. Where will you live? Some colleges don’t have married student housing for undergrads.
Some colleges assign housing by major or group. You can live off-campus but that runs into a bucket (or “spit”-can) of problems when you live together.
If you think the chores will be equitable, think again. How will you share/prepare meals? Daily take-out will burn through your budget. Who cleans, takes out the trash, does MOUNTAINS of laundry? Waits for the manager to fix your refrigerator? Who pays for trash cans, light bulbs, batteries, cell phone bills, car maintenance, insurance, birth control, computer maintenance? Flights home?
If you are in different majors and classes, get ready to be in classes, study groups, tutoring, and office hours, and required pre-med “volunteer” activities, at all hours, on all days. Yes, a large contingent of “pre-meds” go to tutoring because they HAVE to maintain their A grades. Stress can really affect your grades and marriage.
Are you planning to pool your money? What if you pay for most of the expenses?
Spending time together will be a quick Coffee at the Student Cafe.
How do I know this? I’ve seen some really nice couples go through this and their marriages lasted until graduation, give or take. Didn’t see any last 6 years.
Your question is “Does it make sense?” and the answer is no.
A lot will happen during your college years. One of you will decide that their destiny is to study marine biology and gets a fellowship to work in Ecuador/Galapagos Islands. The other will decide that their destiny is to study and document crumbling frescoes in rural Sicily dating back to the early Renaissance. One of you majors in Cyber security and gets a fantastic job with the NSA and needs to be in DC; the other majors in Forestry and winds up in Burlington VT.
Young love is intoxicating which is wonderful. Enjoy each other; enjoy your college experience; make whatever academic/intellectual/professional decisions you need to at the appropriate times. But don’t box yourselves in at the age of 17, whether for romantic or financial reasons. Don’t spend your adult lives wondering about the road not taken.
Spouse and I met during our first jobs after grad school. So we were already done with our education and launched professionally when we met and then married. And even so, it STILL closed off many paths for us. Places to live where both of us could work; timing on promotions/being transferred. Managing expectations when someone’s boss says “The company wants to send you overseas for two years-- huge step up for you, do you speak French btw?”
Deal with that stuff down the road when you’ve both figured out who you are… And marrying to reduce your loans is just shortsighted. There are other ways to get an affordable education.
I think the fundamental issue is that if you are getting married just to try to get more merit aid, that is not going to happen. Your parents finances will be considered by schools like Princeton.
Living with a random roommate is NOTHING like living with a spouse. Living in a dorm on meal plan means no cooking, an RA to help settle disputes, no extra bills, and if you don’t get along with your roommate it’s only a school year commitment (even less at some schools if they let you move second semester).
Being a married student means living in an apartment and being responsible for all the things outlined by other posters from the get go.
TL;DR - getting married is not going to fund your education.
If you did get married and your parents aren’t funding college, Drexel and Temple won’t be close to affordable. The same is true for Pitt, and many of the schools in DC. It is a critical piece of the puzzle to understand if your parents will fund college if you get married.
If they don’t, you won’t get close to what your parents were funding from non-meet full need schools.
And as kelsmom said, some meet full need schools are still going to want your parent financials even if you are married…and they often don’t mention that on their websites. Now that you know that info, I would call the FA office at Georgetown, Penn, and any other meet full need schools on your list and ask that question.
You also need to ask if a change in your marital status will be considered after year one. At some places, if you matriculate as not married, that is how your need based aid will be calculated all four years.
Really, the best way to reduce college costs is to find a college where you will qualify for significant merit aid. Merit aid doesn’t take your marital status or incomes into consideration…and it’s guaranteed (in most cases) for all four years of undergrad school.
Don’t fixate on this issue, since it’s clear you aren’t hearing what people are saying about marriage.
What you do need to focus on is how you will pay for college if you get married and your parents don’t fund college. You seem to be reticent to discuss that here, which is ok.
So, do the research people have suggested (run NPCs as married, call FA depts at meet full need schools to see if they will still require your parent finances.) Below is a link to a loan calculator which you and your BF can use to understand what payments will look like on the loans you both would likely be taking out for undergrad.
Here are the loan rates for 2025-26 (the fed site hasn’t been updated yet):
I didn’t answer it because it seemed like a ridiculous question. If we would be moving up our wedding to get financial aid, we would only do if we would still have access to the money from our parents. If our parents decided to withdraw that support if we got married then we wouldn’t get married. At this point we are still exploring options.
You have learned on this thread that some (maybe many) meet full need schools will still require your parent financials if you get married. They have this policy because you aren’t the first under 24 year old to think you may get more financial aid if you are married. So, you have some homework to do, and are more fully informed than you were when you started the thread.
And with that, I will be out of this thread. Good luck to you.
I am sorry I used the word ridiculous. But it seems like something very obvious. If either of our parents said that they wouldn’t still contribute, or if they said that it would impact our relationship then that would be the end of the idea. At this point they haven’t said that
Here is what they have said
They both have said “We want you both to have the experience of living separately on campus, for at least the first year.”
My parents say “We think you should apply to a range of schools including some reaches. Once you have all the options on the table, we can talk through them, if this idea still makes sense to you we can talk about it then.
My parents say that the money they saved for me for college is mine, but only for school. If I don’t use it for undergrad I can use it for grad school.
His parents say that finances will be a factor in the final decision and he should keep finances in mind when deciding where to apply.
If you live with a random roommate, you only have to figure those things out for a school year. And then the irritations go away when the roommate relationship does.
Living with random roommates, actually, is good preparation for longer-term cohabiting relationships, because you build communication and compromise skills without having to worry about permanence in the relationship. And your finances are not entangled.
Not at residential schools, although the first year is the most difficult to navigate even w/o the work of planning meals, grocery shopping for said meals, storing and cooking (which is why your parents likely insist you live in dorms). You do have to plan washing clothes and just that may trip some freshmen (who can’t find anything clean and put on an inside out sweatshirt…or run to the laundry room at 1 am). Your parents pay for your rent and in dorms everything is included.
When people get married, the idea is that they’re on their own, they’re responsible for each other, not their parents.
You could try and take over this aspect (grocery shopping&cooking) of things for 2 weeks for your family to experience it, and your BF should do the same too (you’d each be responsible for planning meals, buying the food to make the meals following a budget, then each day making the meals, for your respective families) Then you could compare notes. What did you do? What took longer or was more expensive than you thought? How much time did you spend on each task? How could you ensure it’s fair (ie., he can’t choose Ramen or grilled cheese&Campbell soup when you prepare recipes from a cookbook, or vice versa). It can be a good experience and discussion regardless of marital plans.
You wouldn’t necessarily get more FA though - you’d just be eligible for much larger student loans, which wouldn’t be optimal.
I can speak from experience. My spouse and I married at 21. My spouse had one semester of college left. I was working full time and thought I’d never attend college. We became entirely independent from our parents once we married (insurance, phone, everything).
I attended college for the first time at age 23, and we both went on to do PhDs. Yes, we got excellent financial aid after we married.
We were POOR (like federal poverty level poor). Our parents are not poor. We married young because we were in love and felt ready for it. We were also very religious at the time and wouldn’t have lived together before marriage. It worked out great for us and we are incredibly happy in our marriage over 25 years later. However, we came from a culture where young marriage was common and there was a lot of fallout and devastation from almost everyone’s young marriages. We are absolutely the exception to the rule.
Despite my own wonderful experience marrying young, I advise you to NOT get married in college. Others have given you plenty of good reasons. I had nothing but advantages from getting married young (though it was a big financial struggle for us). But I still implore you to delay marriage for several years, at least.
Were our own children contemplating marrying young, we would advise them very differently than our parents advised us. We’d certainly want them to live together for a few years, at the very least. And I don’t think living together is a good idea until you’re in your 20s. My spouse and I both had plenty of experience with successful communal living prior to marrying (spouse in college and athletics, me in several overseas missions).
How? From my divorced friends who married while in college and explained that their schedules and coursework didn’t allow time to be at “home”. One person usually takes it on.
College is NOT high school. The pace is faster and more demanding of your time. The stress of it pushes you. At times, you will lack sleep and healthy patterns of eating and exercise. No professor is going to remind you of due dates or care that you didn’t get enough sleep because the neighbors were having issues.
Our middle daughter graduated from med school. She only had time for school. She didn’t have time to do laundry, clean the bathrooms and run a “flat”. Her 7 flat mates had a chore chart supplemented by a cleaning lady, that they hired, to thoroughly clean the common areas once a week. They set up a Venmo account to each pay their share.
In a dorm, you make your bed and go down the hall to a working bathroom that has toilet paper, clean showers and toilets because the housing office maintains the facility, lighting, trash, laundry services and safety of the dorm. Off-campus, it’s on you.
If you live separately, from your spouse, while in college, the university, or the federal government might consider it fraud if you receive their funding and make you return any funding that you received. I don’t know of any friends who lived separately while receiving university funding.
Edited to add. Getting divorced is very expensive and emotionally draining. The person you are now, is not the person you will be after 4 years of university experiences.
Many med schools already cost over $100K/year. Expects costs to be even higher in 4-6 years when you apply to med school. Changes to the federal student loan program will severely limit the amount of federal loans available to pay for med school. Taking out private loans for med school means your spouse will be on the hook to pay off your med school loans. How does he feel about that?
Med schools will require your parents’ AND your spouse’s financial information when determining your eligibility for FA. Your parents will be expected to contribute toward paying for your medical education. So will your spouse.
Med schools do not give “extra” FA to married students to pay for things like an apartment without roommates or additional food costs or the costs of having 2 cars.
Med students and medical residents are at the mercy of the system. You will go to whatever med school accepts you after applying to 30 or so different schools. (Most med students get only one acceptance.)That school may be across country from where your spouse’s job is. Your clinical rotation sites in med school may or may not be in the same location as your medical school campus. You may be assigned to clinical sites in a different city to even in a different state for weeks to months at a time during med school. Your residency location will be determined by a computer program. You are required to accept the outcome or leave medicine forever. Again, if you decide to sub specialize, your fellowship location will be determined by a computer program. Take it or leave it. No recourse. How will your spouse feel about following you all over the country during your medical training. All that moving makes it tough for them to develop their own career. (Ask me how I know…one of daughters and her fiancé split up over the prospect of relocating every few years for residency & fellowship. He had a job he loved and was up for a major promotion. Moving was simply not on his agenda.)
That was my thought, the person you will be hasn’t shown up yet. Sent 5 kids to college, was always amazed at the changes. Three of my kids had serious SO’s for several years in high school and college. My 28 year old dated 3 guys, 1 year/2 years/6 years. She’s with someone else. My 27 year old dated a girl in HS for 3 years, another in college for 3 years, and has been dating his current GF for 3+ years. My 24 year old met her current BF at college orientation, they survived 3 years of college and 3 years of grad school (long flight from each other). They might get married in a couple of years or so. Folks here typically get married in their late 20’s or later.
I don’t understand this. I know married couples who sometimes need to live separately for a year or two because one of them is in school or deployed or working abroad.
Even if we don’t get married until after undergraduate there might still be times when we would need to be separated because of school or medical training. Why would that be fraud?
I think right now, I would suggest you put marriage in the back burner. Your goal right now is to find an undergrad college where you think you will be happy to be for four years. You are fortunate that your parents can fund just about any undergrad school in this country.
Put medical school on the back burner too. At this point, you don’t even know whether you will actually apply…never mind get accepted.
Your BF should be doing the same…for himself.
Lots of couples have long distance romances for any number of reasons. You may need to do this based on the way things work out for both of you.