If you have an older sibling in grad school

Paying for College
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<p>If you’ve applied to college and noticed your reported efc is considerably greater than your FAFSA efc and you have an older sibling in grad school, you’re in luck. As opposed to FAFSA, colleges automatically assume that grad school students are financially independent so they’ll conveniently double your FAFSA efc. I had this problem with a few of my schools. With a few calls and some paperwork I managed to convince my schools that my sister was dependent and they all immediately reduced my efc to half of what it was before</p>

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<p>I would label your advice under individual mileage may vary as in most cases, it will not work as at an overwhelming majority of colleges FA does not take into consideration older siblings in grad school. </p>

<p>The FAFSA considers a student to be independent once they graduate college. Schools that consider the FAFSA only may find you out of luck. The difference could stem from the fact that is you have applied to a school that uses the CSS profile or their own FA form, they just have a fuller picture of your financial sitation. Congratualtions on being able to get a reduction, but your it your experience is purely situation and not par for the course and won’t happen across the board.</p>

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<p>Just a heads up, FAFSA considers graduate students dependent. On the other hand, most colleges assume graduate students are independent until they recieve proof otherwise and fail to mention this to applicants. I’ve had this info verified by a few of my problem schools including columbia, cmu, and brown.</p>

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<p>Are You an Independent Student? </p>

<p>The independent student definition created by Congress is strict and is considered controversial by many students and parents. However, Federal regulations related to the classification of a student’s dependency status for financial aid must be followed by school financial aid administrators in determining one’s eligibility for federal and state aid funds. Whether a student lives in his own home or apartment and/or claims himself as an exemption on his federal income tax return has nothing to do with a student being considered independent for financial aid purposes. </p>

<p>The only way a student can become independent for financial aid purposes (which means the custodial parents’ income and asset information are not required on the FAFSA) is if the student meets at least one of the following guidelines:</p>

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<li><p>For the 2006-07 school year (blue FAFSA), the student must be born before 1-1-1983; or for the 2005-06 school year (green FAFSA), the student must be born before 1-1-1982);</p></li>
<li><p>The student must be married; or</p></li>
<li><p>The student must have a child or other dependents who receive more than half their support from the student; or</p></li>
<li><p>The student must be enrolled as a graduate student (master’s, doctoral) or professional student (medicine, dentistry, or law); or</p></li>
<li><p>The student must be a qualified veteran of the U.S. military; or</p></li>
<li><p>The student must be an orphan (parents deceased) or ward of the court or was a ward of the court until age 18; or</p></li>
<li><p>The student must have special and unusual circumstances which can be documented to his or her college financial aid administrators (i.e., abuse in the family, alcoholism, etc.). This exception is rare and only an experienced financial aid administrator at your college can make this “dependency override” on the FAFSA application.</p></li>
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<p><a href=“http://www.fafsa.com/independent.htm[/url]”>http://www.fafsa.com/independent.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;