Unusual Circumstances

Students who are over the age of 24, have dependents of their own, are an orphan or ward of the court, are veterans or active duty military service members, or pursuing a graduate degree or professional credential are considered independent for the purpose of determining their financial aid eligibility. All other students are considered dependent and must include parental information on their FAFSA application.

When students have unusual circumstances, financial aid administrators may use professional judgment to make the student independent for financial aid purposes, and remove parental information from the SAI calculation on the FAFSA. The Higher Education Act does not allow financial aid administrators to change a student's dependency status from independent to dependent. For this reason, the unusual circumstances exceptions are not applicable to graduate students.