r/EngineeringStudents • u/Mth281 • 13h ago
Rant/Vent Rant, Fafsa is broken.
Just need to rant. I'm non traditional going back for EE. Due to being non traditional with a family and bills, I also have to work. Due to working less to make room for classes, we are pretty broke atm. Got some fafsa, and some other grants that would pay for 100% of my classes. But because I have to work 20 hours a week to make ends meet, I'm only taking 8 credit hours. Unfortunately for me, I already knocked out all my ace electives at the community college.
Well financial aid was posted. It will only pay for 40% of my classes. Lost a bunch of grants because I'm not doing 12 credit hours. Problem being, to reach 12 credit hours this semester, I'd have to take intro to EE, intro to programming, linear algebra, diffeq and calc 3. Which we all know would be impossible to do while working 20 hours a week. And since I knocked out ace electives, I have no fluff classes.
Just seems broken. A student not working and going full time is financially better off than I am. I can't afford to not work. But due to me having to work, I lose aid. Engineering being so time consuming is also part of the issue, as one math class takes the same amount of time as half of another areas semester.
Honestly, it's might be better to stop working and go full time. Working a low wage job just to have the freedom to be able to step away to do the homework, almost pays the same as the aid I would receive. But I'd get done quicker with a couple thousand more in debt per year by not working.
Rant, they really need to change this system. Or at least have fafsa take into account hours worked. If you work 20 hours, that should have a credit equivalent.
Also curious, anyone else run into the same issue? What did you do?
Edit. Since I'm getting a lot of crap. I also have a child, children take time. Driving them to school, moving them around to sitter and events, helping them with school. We also have a home, so I also have to do maintenance. I can't just retreat to my small apartment and spend all free time doing homework. On top of that my wife is also working slowly towards a masters. So we have a lot going on and a lot of balancing we have to do.
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u/MusicalMerlin1973 13h ago
lol. It’s definitely broken. I’m not running into it with my son because we don’t qualify. We do still have to fill out the form - school uses it for scholarships and stuff. 🤷♂️
The part that I find broken: I got a subsidized fafsa loan for the max amount in 1993. $5k. Today you can get a max subsidized loan each year of… $5k.
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u/smok-purps-dab-terps 12h ago
thats effing crazy
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u/vedicpisces 11h ago
The massive push for the tradez and anti college sentiment isnt making it better.. "Why should MY hard earned tax dollars be spent on helping some idiot libtard get a useless piece of paper in lesbian dance theory???".
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u/PulsarGaming1080 7h ago
To be fair, college costs have exploded. It is entirely unreasonable, and dare I say unethical, to saddle an 18-year-old with 50K worth of debt at a minimum.
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u/Practical_Passion_78 10h ago
$5k USD and no more?
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u/MusicalMerlin1973 10h ago
You can get more loans, just not subsidized (aka, taxpayers paying interest into your graduate)
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u/Practical_Passion_78 8h ago
That’s really not a lot of help at all given the cost of everything right now.
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u/reddangerzone Electrical Engineering 13h ago
I'm working part-time and doing school fulltime (also non-traditional EE student) and that has its own host of issues. It's hard dude.
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u/Joshkl2013 University of Kentucky- B.S. Mechanical Engineering 13h ago
I'm gonna level with you, i ended up losing my scholarship. My senior year of college because I was working as a desk clerk and kroger, and also doing formula SAE while I was in college.
The amount of money that I made at that part time job was less overall than the tuition money that I lost. It took away thousands of hours of my life and because I lost my scholarship. It made my grades worse. And it made me actually come out having less money than if I just never had worked.
Take out a loan if you need money
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u/reddangerzone Electrical Engineering 12h ago
I am planning to take loans if I need to. At the moment my part-time job is a vehicle engineering internship that is both directly applicable to my program and values my education.
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u/Joshkl2013 University of Kentucky- B.S. Mechanical Engineering 12h ago
Yeah that kind of stuff is definitely worth doing.
I don't regret Formula SAE but I do regret the desk job which cut into my sleep and/or my study time and I do regret working at Kroger as they didn't respect me, my time, my schedule requirements, and the money was not worth the scholarship trouble.
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u/reddangerzone Electrical Engineering 12h ago
Yeah, I left a hospitality position that absolutely did not care about my studies and that was wiping me out completely last quarter, so I feel that. I'm sure this'll still suck to do alongside school but at least it's giving me good benefits, applicable experience, and treating my education as valuable.
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u/Mth281 8h ago
This has been the plan for my last year. May move it up. Been worried about the class load with family and all that. Took this semester easy because it was my first at university. Im hoping I can fit more classes in. And maybe get to 14-16 credit hours if I go full time. But so far I have taken everything accelerated in 10 weeks. So being on the semester system will be change, hopefully for the better. Calc2 and diffeq in ten weeks was a lot to take in, and a lot of hours of homework a week.
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u/bu11d0g-bis0n 13h ago
Electrical engineering program doing part time?
How many years do you plan to take doing that vs full time?
Would it be better if you take on debt ? Since you will make that back by graduating earlier?
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u/Deep_Flatworm4828 13h ago
This exactly.
I did this calculation and figured the 4 years extra earning, even if it was all at the absolute lowest salary any engineer would take, would far surpass the debt I would take on with loans.
For some it might be different so it's a worthwhile thing to examine.
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u/bu11d0g-bis0n 12h ago
In the student loan universe.....
Student loans for engineering degrees is probably best bang for your debt.....
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u/bihari_baller B.S. Electrical Engineering, '22 11h ago
Student loans for engineering degrees is probably best bang for your debt.....
I agree. A lot of the discourse around student loans is negative, however, I think that for an engineering degree, it's a unique case. I took out some federal student loans to help pay for a couple of quarters of school, and it was the best debt I ever took on.
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u/mattynmax 12h ago
It’s almost always better to take the debt. Some people are simply petrified by the thought of debt that they don’t think about the opportunity cost of losing years of engineering salary.
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u/Mth281 10h ago
Started slow. I started 3 years ago but also worked full time. I was just redoing early math classes at night after work. Started working less and doing more school. We managed to pay out of pocket for most of my cc classes.
But since I started working less money is getting shorter. We are at a weird point where we need the money I'm making, but we would be better off financially if I graduated early and did more classes, and the grants would help fluff the lack of income.
My big hope is an internship. Work low hours during the semesters, have extra income on offseason. Then I can do full time school, get grants, and keep my income from being debt. I just transfer in 43 credits. I'll be at 50 after this semester. So a couple credits short of a junior. But I needed some Engineering classes and programming to fluff the resume. Otherwise I was applying with a bunch of math, ace electives and physics.
It's seeming quiting working is the way to go. If I go 8 credits a semester, I take longer to graduate and come out with the same amount of debt, or I go full time, graduate a year or two early, and come out in the same amount of debt.
My rant is about how disproportional the drop in benefits are. Go to school at 2/3 of the normal rate, lose 2/3 of your help. It's inverse.
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u/Asleep-Second3624 10h ago
I stopped working my part time job for this very reason. It only makes sense if the wage is very high to offset the grant lost by a large margin.
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u/Practical_Passion_78 8h ago
I do not understand all the comments suggesting you to go back into education full-time when you’ve clearly laid out the case that you are unable to do so via reasonable financial limitations and family responsibilities.
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u/gottatrusttheengr 12h ago
12cr+20hr is not undoable.
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u/Mth281 12h ago
When you have a house to maintain, children plus a wife who is doing a double masters. It's a lot. But that's partly my fault for knocking out all the easy ace electives before transferring. 3 math classes and 2 engineering classes is a lot with all that on top. The class credits didn't line up well, so I would have had to do 14 credits.
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u/gottatrusttheengr 11h ago
I did 12 cr grad school + full time work at a startup while we were having our first kid, wife works full time.
I don't know if you can still adjust your schedule and thus your FAFSA amount but consider taking upper level technical electives or project based classes if your school has them. They usually arent as heavy as core mandatory classes and can be quite enjoyable. I finished undergrad early by front loading all of my technical electives into sophomore year while I still had schedule bandwidth.
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u/Candid-Ear-4840 Electical 12h ago
That’s why I went back full time and took out federal loans. Also a non trad student. I don’t have a family though so I can live on just federal loans and scholarships and state/federal grants.
I’m going to have probably 30k in loans by the time I graduate. My starting salary at my power company will be 86k or greater if I take their job offer. I will literally pay off all my student loans in less than a year of working. It would cost me so much money if I went part time to avoid student loans and delayed my job start date.
And power is the ‘less’ well paying specialty lmao
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u/tshirtdr1 13h ago
Only you can answer this question but I'll chime in with my opinion. I'm not sure about your family situation but can you find a job that will allow you to work on weekends only? Hospitals sometimes have 12 hr shifts. 2-12 hr shifts would get you up to your 20+ hrs/week and leave you free to take classes during the week. Another thing to consider is that when you hit 120 hrs, your financial aid will run out so use it wisely and don't pad your schedule with fluff. I am assuming you have about 60 credit hours now. If I could finish in 2 years, I'd strongly consider taking some small loans for living expenses and going full time at school.
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u/DoubleHexDrive 12h ago
I did my BS in mechanical engineering working 20-30 hours a week… it sucks but is certainly possible. I also did my masters program at 2 classes a semester while working 40-50 hours a week. Just take the 12 hours and see how much work you can manage to reduce the amount you need to borrow.
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u/Proud_Olive8252 12h ago
Yeah, the financial aid systems are a disaster. I’m in a similar position now, and there isn’t an easy answer. I’m just still working anyway and doing the best I can to make it work.
It’s not going well. I am currently trying to resolve an issue that has disqualified me from ALL financial aid. The issue being that my loan servicer overpaid me last semester for the aid I qualified for… by 34 cents. So now while I sit through endless phone calls and bureaucratic forms to fix it, almost my entire paychecks are spent on tuition so my classes don’t get dropped. I’m working 30 hours a week laboring in the hot sun, keeping up with my 9 credit hours, and still have no time or money left at all.
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u/xShockmaster 12h ago
12 units should only be 3 full classes. Thats incredibly doable with part time work included. You’re giving up money to be a part time student.
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u/Few_Whereas5206 12h ago
We paid for my daughter's in-state university. She is very bright and got into some very exclusive schools. We make not enough to afford them, but too much to get substantial tuition or living assistance.
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u/Spam_Hand 12h ago
Its not always going to work, but you ahould be able to file a revision request with your financial aid department. I did that in 2024 while I was functionally unemployed (only Doordash income for 3 months after leaving my job) but my taxes they they took were from my highest earning year and only made me eligible for limited loans.
After the revision was complete, I was awarded state and federal grant money due to current circumstances instead of the ones they assumed from 2 years ago. Be aware, it took a couple of months in my case due to a complex tax scenario in 2023 and 2024. But it did get corrected.
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u/Blastoyse 12h ago
It is doable. I also worked 20 hours and taking at least 12 credit hours. Junior year was hell for EE for sure, but just gotta throw all your free time into studying. Helps having a study group.
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u/Sea_War_381 12h ago
I work full time and take 9 credit hours aka 3 classes. It's rough dude. Trick is to find a job that will pay for school. Luckily, mine will pay up to 12k a year. I still have to pay the rest though but it's not much more. If I were you, I'd take on the loans and graduate faster. I wish I could. My degree will be an 8 year degree.
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u/SMITHL73 Mechanical Engineering - Graduated 12h ago
Can you take / add a “fluff” minor that you just … don’t finish? I mean like some history or gov minor or something that would hopefully be an essay here and there? You could see if you could swing asynchronous classes for that too so it’s less taxing on your schedule
You can then just “drop” the minor later
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u/Linuxtahr 11h ago
If your really serious about EE this might be loan time, find someone, either a babysitter or a family member that can help with the children, and try and spend as much time as you can on classes. Might have to be able to sleep less. Also aside from the math classes, the intro to EE/programming shouldn't be too bad. Also if im guessing from my experience of where you are, there's probably an EE elective you can take that doesn't require much for prereq, actually there might be even engineering writing class you can take instead.
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u/Mth281 11h ago
This semester is just weird. It's my first semester at university. One class is 2 credits. I've also knocked out a bunch of classes at cc and have just a few that are required for other classes to unlock. So I was locked in on what I could take this semester. If I wanted to reach 12, it would have been the three I'm taking now, but also adding in calc3 and diffeq. Otherwise 4 classes would have been 1 credit short of 12. I should have more freedom after this semester, and even more the following semester.
My goal was finish this semester out and start looking for internships. That way I make more money on off seasons, and limited work during semesters. But since I started at cc, I had zero engineering classes. I will have EE classes and programming now, and also be a few credits under a junior. That should help with that.
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u/Freddy_Faraway 11h ago
Sure man me too. I qualify for fasfa, yet I havnt received any more than the first couple semesters I was given. This semester I took 12 CR on top of my 50 hour work week to see if I could requalify. Didn't happen.
Been paying out of pocket via payment plans for the last year and a half. It's certainly brutal, but it's temporary.
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u/Mr-Logic101 Ohio State~MSE~Metallurgist~ Aluminum Industry 10h ago
You can always take more fluff classes. It is to you benefit to increase your GPA.
Do something interesting like history
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u/Mth281 10h ago
I was told the grants lost needs the classes to be degree specific. So I can't do that. I looked into this option. I don't enough fafsa to pay for all of it, but the state grant is based on whether you get fafsa or not. If you do, you can get the grant. If I was full time, fafsa would cover 60-70%. And the extra grant would pay for the rest. But becauxe I'm not full time, I only get 50% of that fafsa, and zero grants. So I'm stuck paying 70% of my tuition out of pocket, unless I go full time. Just seems like a disproportional change in benefits for going 1/3 slower.
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u/Mr-Logic101 Ohio State~MSE~Metallurgist~ Aluminum Industry 10h ago
Double major in history and take upper level history classes to round out schedule
You don’t have to necessarily complete the history degree
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u/DeltaDied 10h ago
How are all those classes 12 credit hours? I have 13 and I am taking calc 1, physics, and African American Male history. You can guess which classes bring me to 10 credits alone.
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u/Mth281 10h ago
Intro to E2, 2cr. Intro to c, 3cr. Linear, 3cr. This is my current schedule. If I wanted to hit 12 this semester, I am stuck on what's being offered this semester, and what prerequisites I need. To hit 12, I would have need diffeq, 3cr. And calc3, 3cr. This would put me at 14.
I took diffeq last quarter. But barely failed. And the teacher was not good, we were spending 30 hours a week on the one class, with some weeks getting closer to 50 or more. Hoping the next time around is a breeze since I learned most of it.
Calc 1 is dumb outlier. It's worth a lot of credits. And it's nothing time wise compared to calc2 or diffeq.
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u/Ok-Armadillo-5634 10h ago
I didn't qualify for anything because my parents were rich and spent my entire college career homeless and begging people to swipe me through the food hall.
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u/Prestigious-Law-7484 9h ago
Add a class that you do not need for the degree to fulfill full time requirements.
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u/IllEstablishment5 9h ago
declare 2nd major or minor in business. Take intro to business classes...macroeconomics, microelectronics etc. It will get you over the hump.
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u/Prestigious-Law-7484 9h ago
I am currently taking care of a toddler, working part time to pay all bills, and am receiving aid from FAFSA.
I was homeless at 17 and started college at 24 because I qualified for independence by fafsa's standards through age.
Regardless of the abundant nonsense listed in this comment section that is constantly implying your a dummy or that your situation isnt deserving of aid... FAFSA is designed for people who cant afford college and not for children living off of mommy and daddy. (Theres nothing wrong with living with your parents but if your being a jerk then please just stop).
If your on your parents' taxes, you only get the most aid when your parents are dirt poor by income... because the point of it is to assist low income. Thats it. As simple as that. Can you afford college? No? You deserve and should expect FAFSA aid then. Just make sure you meet the qualification of being full-time of course.
We can sit here and say that your choices put you in the financial situation your in but thats a whole other story. Nobody should be making assumptions. Also everybody pointing a finger 👉 is identically guilty because they deny that one of the reasons they didn't end up in that situation is by having tons of help they pretend didnt exist.
Like I said, I was literally homeless at 17, I have no family, no help, not a single babysitter, nothing... these kids who grow up with parents to even allow them to go to college in the first place should never be speaking about who is entitled or who deserves what. You were literally gifted the opportunity to thrive.
There's no telling what choices they would make in other scenarios. People love ignoring all of the things given to them while simultaneously claiming they did it all themselves AND on top of that complaining about people who dont have it figured out. Mind your business. They really didnt do it themselves like they pretend to protect their weak character, their ego. They feel entitled, proud, and better than, but its a fallacy.
Btw my wife is also pursing a masters at the same time as all of this.
Anyway, all of this does not matter. Message me if you need help. Your going to get through college, obtain a degree, and make something of yourself. For you, your wife, and your children. On the other side, youll have a better life. Everything can be figured out.
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u/DevelopmentEastern75 7h ago
You're going to find this over and over: the university system doesn't give a shit about older students and returning students.
You're lucky you're getting anything, dude. I didn't get shit.
Every grant or scholarship I qualified for, I couldn't show "financial need", because I was married and working in a high COL region, and our incomes blew it out of the water.
Even if financial need didn't disqualify me, most scholarships also include a maximum age of 29, and thus, I had aged out.
In the grand scheme of things, I came see, it's not that big of a deal. It can be painful when reality doesn't fit with your expectations, but that's engineering.
There are worse fates: dropping out because you're destitute, truly living in dire poverty, etc.
Yes, FAFSA is not meant for you. Most scholarships aren't meant for you. They're meant for someone else. I was in the same boat.
IMO You're better off accepting it and moving forward. Figure out a graduation plan that makes sense.
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u/Mozzie37 6h ago
I agree, I'm financially independent from my parents, but it still asks for their information when filling it out. I can't even get access to their documents, so I just end up not filling it out and using HOPE to pay for the majority of my tuition and then paying out of pocket for the rest.
I DO NOT RELY ON MY PARENTS FOR SCHOOL, MY HOUSING, MY FOOD WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR FINANCES WHEN IM PAYONG FOR SCHOOL.
Ugh It's messed up
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u/deepthought097124 1h ago edited 1h ago
As someone who has and still is dealing with this problem I will reiterate first what others in this thread have said: the current undergraduate system for various reasons is basically setup as a secondary high school as a practical matter and therefore any student who has to work a job to varying degrees, both older students and younger students under the age cutoff both tend to get screwed over.
The other big issue with the "dependency" status framework for the younger students as you've discovered, is that by its own definitions it really has little to do with actual dependency or a lack thereof. The higher education industry, and specifically the financial aid aid profession, does an atrocious job of explaining this and arguably makes things worse.
Part of this is because the reality is pretty insane, and so to ensure we all pretend this makes any sense they come up with several common harsh rebuttals as to why things work this way.
The primary one is to use obtuse language that implies students like your self are in fact not actually independent adults in the first place merely because this one isolated piece of our legal system ascribes you as a "dependent" which literally only means your required to submit a parent's tax return because the law says so, despite the fact that this has nothing to do with your actual circumstances.
When Congress wrote the HEA and amended it later in 1992, both the financial aid profession and Congress themselves explicitly did not intend to just exclude students like yourself entirely though the industry now claims this paradox was indeed intended at the time for the reason noted above.
The actual legislative record reflects that you were supposed to be able to file for a discretionary adjustment (which is now limited to cases of abuse, abandonment, etc.) but the powers that be realized by removing the fallback it would contribute to more subsidized loan borrowing since there was no way to prove your way out and thus the Department of Education proclaimed (with no actual legal basis) that they had "identified" things which did not count for an adjustment based on their "interpretation" nearly a decade later.
There is a lot of legal specifics, but if they had done the same under today's federal standards it would have been challenged and struck down in about five seconds as baseless. Unfortunately, that is due to changes in 2024, and by this point, Congress had already clarified only abuse and similar cases where there was a "risk" of contacting a parent qualified because the profession and agencies complained that the law didn't define what counted (which was the entire point of the discretionary provision but who cares apparently).
TLDR: From 2003 to 2020 or so, the financial aid profession, institutions, and the DOE, collectively just went over Congress' head so that students like you are frivolously stuck being labelled as "dependents" and then duped Congress into codifying that fact into law without ever discussing who was being left out.
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To expand on something noted earlier, I'd also mention that most of the "reasons" this "must" be the case can be picked apart with any basic critical thinking or review of the law itself. The common ones include:
"every parent would just not support their kid"
Their "kid" is an adult, if that adult is supporting themselves it does not, and should not, matter as a mere point of keeping a consistent definition/principle whether the parent would otherwise support them. If people in the profession disagree, then they need to remove the cutouts for age and people who are married, etc.
Also, no previous version of the HEA where students in this circumstance did qualify, simply allowed parents to support students and not claim them on tax returns and get grants legally, or for a parent to simply cutoff a kid at 18 and for that student to instantly receive independent status. They always had some mechanism where the person had to *demonstrate* that were in fact an independent adult just like most emancipation processes for minors. The removal of the tax based version stemmed from people who were often committing actual tax fraud during a time when technology was not as prevalent and the tax-based version was removed only for that reason to prevent abuse.
"being financially independent is not sufficient"
A financially independent adult by literally all standards of western society legally and otherwise with the exception of this one label for the purposes of filling out a form is just an independent adult generally. This distinction is wholly trivial.
You will also get the general GEN guidance thrown at you a lot, including that of
"living away from home"
and "parents not claiming a student on tax returns"
Though it doesn't qualify one under the current garbage laws as noted, the latter phrasing is implicitly bullshit in terms of what it implies because parents cannot just claim an adult child under 24 merely because they are a student. The tax preparation/CPA industry has started doing it because the IRS never audits it from what most professionals will tell you, and it serves no FAFSA purpose anymore. That said, willfully doing so when the student supports themselves is literally fraud, because there is indeed a 50% support threshold for those tax standards under IRC 152.
On the former item, this notion that a student's real home is their parent's house even if they don't reside there is only a standard for the purpose of the Qualifying Child test and has no bearing on the HEA itself, but also is usually wrong for students in the above case. That tax standard does not say "education is a temporary absence period"; rather, education *can be* a temporary absence if the student is a full-time student and their is a reasonable expectation the person will return to the family home for residency purposes. Many tax professionals import the standard informally of spending 50% of the time or more at that residence excluding the time at school to determine principal place of abode.
A large majority of students who work to pay rent and support themselves and don't necessarily have any intention of moving back in with their parents for some regular basis, even if it at some point happens in a later year, hence failing *both* of these standards.
The financial aid profession basically ignores all of the actual rules when it comes to front line staff at aid offices who take a 30 hour training and are underpaid and overworked, and instead uses this language as though they know what they are talking about with respect to sometimes irrelevant tax law (they often don't) which is EXTREMELY insulting to students like yourself. Trust me, I know.
Not only is this policy point a pretty worthless measure in 2026, as described it was mostly inadvertent from the perspective of Congressional intent, and the bare minimum the FAFSA information online and the broader profession could do to not traumatize these students more is to be honest about how the system works and the their circumstances. Usually, they do the opposite.
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u/Mozzie37 1h ago
This is a wonderful writeup! I really dont understand why it has to be this way. I'm unable to apply for any other sorts of financial aid (even though I'm more than eligible) because if this bullshit system, so now I'm living well above my means paying for school that should cost WAYYYY less than it does, and with a load of debt weighing on my shoulders.
Thanks beaurocracy... 🖕
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u/LaserGod42069 6h ago
it sucks, and there are other ways people can fall through the cracks. it could be fixed if education was affordable, but then it would be harder for rich bastards to hoard money.
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u/Raccoon133 5h ago
Going to school now; can’t qualify for anything at 38. ALL the other younger students getting a good portion of their school paid for. Coming out of pocket $2,300 a month; for 10 months of the year to the university. It’s hard. But it’ll make you tougher.
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u/ConfidentAddress9846 5h ago
get your degree. I ran into logistical difficulties working a full time job as an engineering tech that needed calc2 at community college which was in person, 40 minutes from my work, 5 days a week if I wanted an engineering degree. Said nope, got a leadership minor from the ag college and an applied science degree. got promoted at my company to a salaried engineer position before I graduated with a bachelor at 40. Didn't pay a dime due to keeping my course load at 12 hours per semester to get the benefits of full time student eligibility for grants and later scholarships was a game changer.
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u/john_hascall Iowa State - ME > EE > CprE, CS 4h ago
I don't understand -- it's very common for FT students to work 20 hrs per week.
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u/Apprehensive-Car9995 4h ago
I ran into this and I took a random intro to college learning class to fill my extra credits. The class took 2 hours a week and got me an extra 3k for school. It sucks but I think it’s worth it to fill the credits with fluff classes even if you don’t need them for your degree.
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u/InterstellarCapa CPE, CS 1h ago
I was a non traditional student myself. I had to work to pay for classes and bills. It's hell.
What I couldn't cover with my paycheck I covered with loans. That's how I did it.
Your path is going to be very different than the usual 18-22 year old. It may take you longer to get that degree and that's ok!
Don't be so hard on yourself. You won't have the free time that traditional students have so time management is going to be key.
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u/Electronic_Egg_9785 12h ago
It's not broken. It is a government program that has to evaluate 20 million students every year, and they have to reevaluate those 20M students several times each year. There aren't enough FAFSA workers to evaluate each individual case. So there is a set of guidelines that have been developed to provide the most aid to the most qualified number of applicants. And that kind of program has to have requirements, one of which is being a full time student. If you want the aid, you have to meet the program requirements.
Lots of full time students work a lot more than 20 hours per week. I was working around 30 each week while getting my B.S. in engineering. There are ways for non-traditional students to pay for school too. I got two Master's degrees paid for by my employers. Or you can apply for scholarships and loans.
I'd add some fluff classes that gets you to full-time status to get the aid you want. Take them pass/fail and do just enough to pass.
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u/Joshkl2013 University of Kentucky- B.S. Mechanical Engineering 12h ago
This is why things like universal free schooling are so good: you can stop paying for all of the evaluation workers that are not adding value but barriers.
Imagine universal basic income with work making you additional money. SNAP, disability, all of the welfare programs can go away in favor of UBI. All of the people required to run those programs are no longer necessary. More money going directly to people and into jobs that are just gatekeepers.
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u/Practical_Passion_78 10h ago
It’s intentionally abusive. Your claim of it being not broken is false.
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u/Amazing_Mud_1601 12h ago
You don’t “get some fafsa”. The fafsa is a form you fill out. You get federal aid. It’s most relevant for first time students who are listed as dependents on their parents’ taxes. The federal government disperses a finite amount of aid based on your parents’ tax bracket. That’s the whole point of it. Financial aid is a finite amount. It’s a very common misconception for people to assume it’s going to be specifically personalized for you to cover your entire tuition bill. It usually caps out at around $8k max per academic year for full time students. Those are the rules. A tiny bit of research could tell you this
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u/Prestigious-Law-7484 9h ago
The arrogant assumptions your making are incorrect. The correction you made to the phrasing of "get some fafsa" is trivial and has no real purpose other than to indirectly proclaim your intelligent.
FAFSA is for people who cannot afford college. It is certainly not "most relevant" for "dependents on their parents' taxes." In fact it is even more relevant to the OPs situation than what you claim. Dependent students are heavily considered and their personal taxes are factored.
You do have a basic understanding of the loan limits dont you? Since your tiny bit of research was so fruitful you would know that being independent provides significantly more aid... which you would then realize (with a collective effort from all of your brain cells) that this presumably means FAFSA acknowledges the increased need for independent students hence your statements are bogus.
The "rules" you mentioned aren't even accurate.
Now stop throwing reddit tantrums and study up for a quality and prompt reply to my response, ill be expecting something just as lousy and conceited.
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u/Amazing_Mud_1601 7h ago
OP didn’t mention loans at all. They are also lamenting not qualifying for more aid, not less. The loan example is weird bc you’re giving an example where they already qualify for more based on their independent status. OP isn’t saying “woohoo, look how much more I qualify for! Isn’t it wonderful?” They’re saying that no, in their opinion, fafsa is NOT “acknowledging an increased need for independent students” as you put it. They’re saying there should be more acknowledgment. I’m not sure what you were doing with that entire part of your argument.
Pell grant (a type of aid you can get when you fill out the fafsa application) caps out at around 8k, like I said. A freshman under 24 yrs old with no tax history of their own is simply going to fill out the fafsa application with their parents’ info. That’s how the fafsa originated and then it changed later on to allow aid for independent students. An independent student doesn’t automatically get “heavily considered”. idk what you mean by that. Also, I’m assuming you meant to say “independent” instead of “dependent” in that sentence lol. An independent student uses their own personal taxes for the fafsa, yeah. But if they (whether married/filing jointly or filing single) make too much income, they won’t hit the 8k max pell grant just like a dependent student wouldn’t if their parents make an amount above that same threshold. It is weighed slightly differently but there are arguable scenarios where an independent student making 45k is actually gonna receive less than a dependent student whose parents’ combined income is 45k bc things are weighed differently. Sometimes it would be more or less depending on whether the student has dependents of their own, calculated living expenses, assets, all kinds of other details. Everyone is weighed differently, but yeah, Pell is generally around 8k and then reduced if you’re taking less classes. Same with loans, since you brought that up. Like, they’re not gonna give you the full loan or Pell grant amount if you’re a part time student bc you’re only being charged part time tuition. Receiving more in federal aid due to your “working hours” being the theoretical reason for your part time status as a student also makes no sense. It was originated for first time students who don’t have a job lol. Yes it includes independent students now but that doesn’t mean there’s gonna be rly significant perks for working or being independent on your taxes, at least not specifically with federal aid
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u/Joshkl2013 University of Kentucky- B.S. Mechanical Engineering 13h ago
Honestly, it's might be better to stop working and go full time.
You are delaying getting your degree and your earning potential to work some job that doesn't require a degree. As you see, people who go full time are getting more than you and that's because the expectation is that they are ONLY DOING SCHOOL. So they qualify more to help them survive.
Part time is for people like my wife going back to school while making 60k per year working full time. Not part time. If you NEED a part time job try going through the university because they will give jobs to students for cafeteria, desk clerk, reslife etc. But you really should be going full time and the drop off in grands is to encourage full time.
Get your degree done and move on. Stop slow rolling it because it isn't helping you and you are losing years of high earnings in the future by taking longer to get your degree.
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u/MrNo_Balls 9h ago edited 9h ago
buddy you have not even gotten to the hard part which is getting a job and you're already complaining? Also can't you take upper division fluff classes, not everything is covered in CC and " intro to EE, intro to programming, linear algebra, diffeq and calc 3." are all classes offered in CCs take them at your CC.
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u/ThemanEnterprises 12h ago
You're complaining about getting essentially free school? Dude. Either take loans out to fit the difference or work less. It isn't rocket surgery. 40% of your classes paid for is still an incredible amount of money. Figure it out.
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u/Joshkl2013 University of Kentucky- B.S. Mechanical Engineering 12h ago
You're complaining about getting essentially free school? Dude. Either take loans out to fit the difference or work less. It isn't rocket surgery. 40% of your classes paid for is still an incredible amount of money. Figure it out.
While I agree that OP does need to make a change and figure it out, /u/ThemanEnterprises, OPs situation is one that can be and should be empathized with. Lots of people go through this struggle, and it is frustrating and confusing.
I don't disagree with the action you are advocating but I have real problems with your lack of empathy in your response.
Additionally, it's really not that much when you considering this is probably a few thousand per year meaning OP is going to be on the hook for another 10k or more per year.
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u/ThemanEnterprises 12h ago
Life's not all puppies and cupcakes. His only option is to figure it out. I made the exact same sacrifices as a non traditional student, I don't care for performative internet empathy. ~$40-50k of student loans in nothing in the worst case. You gotta do what you gotta do no two ways around it.
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u/Joshkl2013 University of Kentucky- B.S. Mechanical Engineering 12h ago
Life's not all puppies and cupcakes. His only option is to figure it out. I made the exact same sacrifices as a non traditional student, I don't care for performative internet empathy. ~$40-50k of student loans in nothing in the worst case. You gotta do what you gotta do no two ways around it.
Why even comment then? The goal is to persuade OP into taking a good action that will be better for their life. If your answer is "life sucks figure it out", you aren't adding value.
If your aim is to persuade (AND IT SHOULD BE), you can soften the blow while still delivering a hard truth. Describing $50k in debt as "nothing" is a dangerous minimization. Just because you successfully navigated that financial burden as a non-traditional student doesn't mean it's a safe or sustainable path for everyone else. Expecting people to blindly take on massive debt with a "just deal with it" attitude ignores the very real mental health and financial crises many students face trying to survive engineering programs.
I'm not going to say everything is puppies and cupcakes; if you look at the other messages I wrote on this post you can see I went through it too and it sucks, and OP needs to change what they are doing. But if you're going to message just to kick people while they are down and you aren't interested in persuading, maybe you shouldn't comment.
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u/Itchy-Truth-7220 13h ago
I ran into this issue and declared a minor to fill the hours needed to be full time