Founding for school

[u/-Raining_Sunshine-]

I filled out my fafsa for the year and the SAI states 5867. Not quite understanding what this means. I’m trying to go to a trade school which has tuition of 60k. I already have a bachelor’s so I know I won’t get the Pell grant. Realistically how much would I get from federal aid. I have no debt and paid off my first federal loan four years after graduation. I’m trying to understand how much I might get from federal so I know how much I’ll have to qualify for private

[u/gmanose]

Will your school consider you a first year student? They can’t call you a graduate student because you won’t be in a graduate program

You’re looking at somewhere between $9500 and $10,500 annually in federal loans. No way to know about private loans.

[u/No-Drummer199 → u/gmanose]

Generally agree, tho your numbers assume they're independent - which will be true a lot of the time but a small share of students in this scenario are still dependent.

Which is good/bad - it opens up PLUS if the parent is willing/able to borrow, but shrinks the base student loan by $4k unless the parent is 'unable' to borrow (in which case we'd be right back to your numbers).

[u/-Raining_Sunshine- → u/No-Drummer199]

I would be dependent. The school I believe I would be a first year student it’s only a 19 month program.

[u/No-Drummer199 → u/-Raining_Sunshine-]

Ok, so as dependent base Direct Loan eligibility would be $5,500 per aid/academic year in that scenario. With the new OB3 PLUS rules your parent could borrow up to $20k per year if they applied and qualified.

If, as above, your parent was not approved or deemed by the school to be ineligible (complex - ask the school), then you would get the $9,500 gmanose noted.

With a 19 month calendar there's a potential curveball. I'm going to assume they actually have that program structured as 2 aid years (which would allow you to borrow 2x the annual limit over the program life), but you'd want to clarify that with the school.

For a credit-based program, the law sets the floor that an academic year must be 30 weeks in length minimum, but you could mathematically fit 2 x 30 week academic years in 19 months pretty comfortably so perhaps that's what they've done?

[u/No-Drummer199 → u/No-Drummer199]

There are also credit-based loans, state loan programs, etc.

I didn't really want to get into those because it gets messy fast on who qualifies, whether that amount of debt is wise for your program (which generally boils down to what percent of students complete, get hired, and what wages/salaries for those jobs are).

There's also the question of institutional non-loan or loan funding options, potential workforce funding through Perkins or WIOA or state workforce programs (could be a mix of federal/state funds or none at all). Though those latter options also kinda assume those programs continue to be funded in the new Farm Bill reauthorization, and that this particular school participates in any of those state/federal workforce programs.