Graduate and professional degree students are now eligible to borrow under the PLUS Loan Program up to their cost of attendance minus other estimated financial assistance in both the Federal Family Education Loan ProgramSM (FFELPSM) and Direct Loan ProgramSM. The terms and conditions applicable to Parent PLUS Loans also apply to Graduate/Professional PLUS loans. These requirements include a determination that the applicant does not have an adverse credit history, repayment beginning on the date of the last disbursement of the loan, and a fixed interest rate of 8.5 percent in the FFELSM program and 7.9 percent in the Direct Loan Program. Applicants for these loans are required to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSASM). They also must have applied for their annual loan maximum eligibility under the Federal Subsidized and Unsubsidized Stafford Loan Program before applying for a Graduate/Professional PLUS loan.
How to ask for more financial aid
Focus on Financial Aid
Is there such a thing as negotiating your financial aid award package? Yes and no. No in the sense that your school’s financial aid office is not like a car dealership with a dean of admissions in the back room who will give you the manager’s Wednesday special. Yes in that if you can prove beyond question that your financial need and circumstances are greater than what’s provided via the usual financial aid paperwork like the FAFSA, schools can be flexible.
Before we get started, I recommend strongly reading this article on StudentLoanNetwork.com about how to read a financial aid award letter.
Get Your Budget In Order
If you don’t use any kind of personal finance software, be it a desktop application like Quicken or a web-based application like Wesabe, Mint, or Geezeo, I strongly recommend starting with one. The web-based applications are free, so if you’re trying to save money from every angle, start with one of those.
Start by importing any electronic records of your finances and your family’s finances for at least 90 days. You’ll want to take the time to categorize your expenses in terms of mandatory and discretionary, followed by breaking them out into individual categories, like mortgage or rent, utilities, etc.
Once you’ve got your budget broken out, you’ll want to compare it against your award letter, especially looking at what kind of discretionary income you have compared to the expected family contribution, or out of pocket expenses. If your EFC from your award letter divided by 12 (for what’s essentially a monthly EFC) is greater than your discretionary expenses budget (dining out, entertainment, etc.) then you’ve got a good starting point for a conversation about what you can and cannot afford.
Get All Your Paperwork Together
If you’re going to be asking for more financial aid based on changed economic circumstances, have ample paperwork available to back up your claims and requests. Did someone lose a job in the family? Have termination notices, unemployment insurance, or other papers ready. Did your income change? Use any of the budgeting software described above to graphically illustrate your monthly cash flow, along with things like pay stubs, tax returns, etc.
Know What To Ask For
It’s not enough to ask for more money. That’s way too generic. Ask for specific amounts, ask for specific assistance, and try to know some of the different types of things financial aid administrators are permitted to do. Financial aid administrators are permitted to make professional judgement overrides on:
- dependency. If you can prove that you are an independent student due to the involuntary dissolution of your family (i.e. parents in jail, social services removed you from the home due to abuse, etc.) a financial aid administrator can override the dependency requirements for undergraduate students, letting you complete the FAFSAand other financial aid paperwork without parental income information.
- future earnings and income. If you can prove that you or your family has had a significant change in income that impacts your ability to pay for college, a financial aidadministrator can grant you more assistance. Be prepared with termination notices, tax returns, and every scrap of paper you can find to make your case.
Updated April 2, 2009: The Department of Education has offered additional guidance for this scenario. See this post at FinancialAidNews.com about the changes.
- cost of attendance. If you can prove that expenses in your student budget (transportation, medical, disability, dependents, and a few other select cases) do not reflect your situation, a financial aid administrator can alter your student budget, allowing for additional aid. If you pursue this override, again, be prepared to document every step of the way to show why, for example, traveling to and from your school requires a transportation budget greater than allotted.
- special circumstances. In some cases, parents divorce during the financial aid award year, but the FAFSA cannot be changed to reflect the divorce. With appropriate court documentation noting the dissolution of the marriage, a student can ask for a special circumstances override that will let them use the income of the custodial parent.
There are other, more narrow circumstances that apply as well. If you don’t know what to ask for, haul as much documentation to your financial aid administrator as possible so that they have as complete a picture of your finances as possible.
Be Polite
The single thing that will do the most good or harm in getting additional aid is how you approach the financial aid office. The best time to approach them is before you need their help, as is the case with virtually all professional networking. Stop by from time to time casually, and say hello. Ask if there are any new scholarships that have been posted. Check in. If you find a scholarship that you’re not eligible for but other students at your school might be, let someone in the office know about it so it can be posted in the office. If you want a real education in financial aid, apply for a work study job in thefinancial aid office.
If you know your parents are, shall we say, less than diplomatic, then try to mediate any discussions with the financial aid office so that overly aggressive or insistent requests don’t harm your chances of getting help.
Check Your School For Scholarships
One of the tips in our Scholarship Search Secrets eBook talks about using keywords for finding scholarships in Google. Another tip is to restrict your search to your school’s web site using the site: restrictor. Go to Google.com and try out this search:
scholarship site:yourschool.edu
For example, if I wanted to search for scholarships at Franklin & Marshall College, I’d type:
scholarship site:fandm.edu
This restricts the search only to F&M, showing scholarships for this particular school. I’d bet that the financial aid staff at F&M probably know about half of these – and even the individual professors in the departments awarding the scholarships may not necessarily know about them.
Try it at your school to see what’s lurking on the college’s web site that could help you pay.
Ask!
Above all else, ask. Ask politely, ask frequently, but ask. There’s an old joke about God and winning the lottery:
One Sunday, Shane walks into a church and kneels down at the altar and begins to pray to God, stating that he owes many people money and asks to win the lottery. After he is done praying, he gets up and walks out. The next Sunday he goes to the same church and pleads with God through his prayers to let him win the lottery so that he can pay these people back.
The next Sunday comes around and Shane enters the church very upset and close to tears, he kneels at the alter and asks why God is doing this to him and say’s that he has asked to win the lottery for three weeks now and nothing. Suddenly there came a loud bang of thunder and God spoke, “Shane, meet me halfway: Buy a bloody ticket.”
If you don’t ask, you’ll never get the opportunity for more financial aid. Schools andfinancial aid offices are swamped right now with people needing additional help – make sure you ask for help if you need it!
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