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Marital status??
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 1:49 pm
by beantheshadow
Hey everybody,
I'm engaged right now and do you guys know if it helps in regards to financial aid to be married? We're thinking about having a wedding next March, but if it'd help we could elope in Vegas next month and have a ceremony next year. Sorry for the random question lololol
Re: Marital status??
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 1:39 pm
by Loney M. Setnick
beantheshadow wrote:Hey everybody,
I'm engaged right now and do you guys know if it helps in regards to financial aid to be married? We're thinking about having a wedding next March, but if it'd help we could elope in Vegas next month and have a ceremony next year. Sorry for the random question lololol
I'm not sure, but I think it depends on if your spouse works or not. If they do, maybe it works against you because you'll have two incomes, but maybe it doesn't make a difference. I really doubt it helps. I'm married and it definitely hasn't helped me get additional financial aid.
Re: Marital status??
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 1:52 pm
by heythatslife
1. At most schools outside of HYS, need is unlikely to influence your financial aid significantly anyway.
2. If you're just married with no kids, it's more likely to work against you in financial aid calculations than for you. The only financial aid policy that I'm really familiar with is that of Harvard, but for HLS, if you're married, any income that your spouse produces above a certain threshold will count against your need-based aid. Even if your spouse is unemployed, HLS does not increase your aid to cover a two-person household because the expectation is that your spouse should be working - unless you have kids, in which case they understand that your spouse may need to be a full-time parent and will increase your budget accordingly. I suspect other institutions will probably have similar approaches.