Financial Aid For Graduate Students

Obtaining financial aid for graduate school can be a bit more difficult than finding financial aid for your Bachelor's degree. Despite this difficulty, there are ways to receive financial aid, which is often necessary due to the nature of graduate school and the heavy workload graduate students take on.

As a full-time graduate student, you are putting the same amount of time into your education as you would be putting into a full-time job. This does not give students any time to work a job outside of school. Graduate students need to find ways to pay for the cost of living such as food and housing, among other things.

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Filling out and submitting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, referred to as FAFSA, is an essential step in trying to receive money to help you pay for your graduate school education. If you do not fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, you will not be able eligible to receive any financial help from programs that supply money to graduate students. It is not necessary to receive word of acceptance into your graduate program before you apply for Federal Student Aid.

It is important to apply for Federal Student Aid as early as possible. Early application for Federal Student Aid will ensure that you are first considered when the most money is still available for college bound students. The amount of money you are able to receive is based on your financial situation and also on how early you apply. If you wait until the deadline to apply, much of the available funding will have already been distributed to other students.

Loans and grants are also available for graduate students to seek out through the U.S. Department of Education. Again, you will not be eligible for these grants or loans if you do not fill out the Federal Student Aid forms, as the amount of assistance you are able to receive from these programs is determined by the information on these forms.

Many graduate programs strongly recommend that students enrolled in these programs dedicate their efforts completely to the programs and do not try to work in addition to their studies, since being enrolled in a graduate program is like having a full-time job. Students enrolled in part-time graduate programs are often surprised that the program takes up much more of their time than they had anticipated. Some students must work in order to make it in graduate school, and it is important for these students to make sure that the jobs they choose will accommodate their school schedules. If graduate students receive aid, sometimes it is required that they not work in addition to school as a condition of the aid.

Certain kinds of aid do not require that you pay them back, so it is essentially a gift. A fellowship, grant or scholarship is a form of financial aid that the students are not responsible to pay back after their education. A loan is a form of financial aid that is required to be paid back after the student completes his or her education.

Financial Aid For Graduate Students