Financial aid is money from the federal government, state government, or your school that can help you pay for tuition, labs, room and board, and other living expenses as you attend graduate school. It can come in these forms:
You don’t have to pay back scholarships, grants, and work-study. You will need to repay any federal loans that you take out for graduate school.
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To find out if you’re eligible for financial aid, you need to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) every year you’re in your graduate program.
By clicking this link, you'll go to the Federal Student Aid site. Any use of the site will be governed by Federal Student Aid's terms of use and any information you provide will be governed by the terms of Federal Student Aid's privacy policy.
The most important thing you can do to get financial aid is to fill out the FAFSA. Your school will generally use your FAFSA information to determine whether you’re eligible for federal, state, and school aid, so it’s especially important to submit it.
You may be familiar with the FAFSA from your undergraduate days. But while your parents may have filled it out previously, now it’s up to you. As a graduate student, you’ll be considered an independent student. That means you’ll use your own financial information, rather than your parents’, on the FAFSA.
There are some basic eligibility requirements for getting federal financial aid for graduate students.footnote 1
After you submit your FAFSA, you’ll receive your financial aid offers from every school to which you’ve been accepted. Financial aid offers may not look alike, but they contain the same information: the cost of attendance and the amount of financial aid you’re eligible for from all sources.
The graduate schools to which you were accepted develop your financial aid offers by starting with the information you gave on your FAFSA. Then they factor in elements like the school’s estimated cost of attendance (COA) and your financial situation.
When it’s time for you to evaluate your graduate school financial aid offers, be sure to separate the "free" money that you don’t have to pay back—scholarships, grants, and fellowships—from federal loans, which you’ll have to pay back with interest.
Cost of Attendance (COA) is an estimate of how much a year of graduate school will cost. If you're attending at least half time, it can include things like tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation and personal expenses.footnote 2 It's one of several factors the school uses to determine how much financial aid you are eligible to receive.