FAFSA family size vs. tax dependents - counting graduate student in household?

Yes, you can include your graduate student in your family size as long as you'll be providing more than half their support during that timeframe (July 2025-June 2026). It doesn't matter if they've finished undergrad - what matters is the financial support test. If you'll be covering more than 50% of their living expenses, tuition (minus any scholarships/assistantships), etc., then they count in your household size. This is true even if they don't live with you because they're enrolled in education.

we had the same issue last yr. my oldest was in grad schl & youngest was sophomore. included both on fafsa & it was fine. support is whats important not where they live

Be careful about the support test!! The rules for FAFSA are different than tax rules for dependents. For FAFSA, you need to count ALL sources of support - including scholarships, loans in THEIR name (not Parent PLUS), and any TA/RA stipends. If all those combined are more than what you provide, then technically they fail the support test and shouldn't be counted in family size.

I used to work in a financial aid office, and this is one of the most common questions we received. Here's what you need to know: 1. Graduate students are automatically considered independent for FAFSA purposes, so your grad student will file their own FAFSA separate from your undergraduate student. 2. However, for determining YOUR household size on the FAFSA for your undergraduate student, you CAN include your graduate student if you provide more than 50% support, even if they're filing their own FAFSA. 3. The support test includes all expenses: housing, food, medical, transportation, personal expenses, and education expenses not covered by scholarships/grants. 4. You need to assess this based on the future period (July 2025-June 2026), not current support.

This is why I HATE the FAFSA!!! How are we supposed to predict what support our kids need a YEAR in advance?? My daughter didn't even know which grad school she'd attend until April, and FAFSA wants me to know in October how much I'll support her starting next July?? The whole system is ridiculous! 😡

Your grad student is considered independent for FAFSA purposes regardless of whether you support them or not. But you can still count them in your household size on your other student's FAFSA. Just be aware that SAI calculations are now using a different formula and family size impacts the SAI less than it did when it was called EFC. Having an additional household member might not change your younger student's aid eligibility as much as you'd expect.

Thank you all for such detailed responses! This has been super helpful. I think I have a much clearer picture now. We'll need to sit down and estimate how much our graduate student's program might cover versus how much we'll contribute, but at least we know what counts toward that 50% threshold now. Seems like there's no simple answer - we'll need to run the numbers and be as accurate as possible.

man I never even thought about this when filling out FAFSA lol. just put down whoever is living at home and helping pay bills. financial aid office never questioned me about it 🤷‍♂️

Just wanted to add another perspective here - I'm currently a grad student whose parents include me in their household size for my younger sibling's FAFSA. I have a research assistantship that covers tuition and gives me a small stipend, but my parents still help with rent, car insurance, phone bill, and emergency expenses. We calculated it out and their contribution is still more than 50% of my total support when you include everything. The key is being thorough - don't just look at tuition coverage, but all living expenses too. My parents keep receipts for Venmo transfers, insurance payments, etc. just in case we get selected for verification. One tip: if your grad student doesn't know their funding situation yet, you might want to estimate conservatively and be prepared to update if needed. Some schools allow FAFSA corrections if circumstances change significantly.

As someone who just went through this exact situation last year, I wanted to share what we learned! We had one kid finishing undergrad and starting a PhD program, plus another still in undergrad. The biggest thing we discovered is that you really need to look at the TOTAL picture of support. Our grad student got a full tuition waiver plus a $25k stipend, but when we added up ALL their expenses (rent, food, car, insurance, medical, personal expenses, etc.), it came to about $45k for the year. Since we were covering the $20k difference, we could legitimately include them in our household size. The tricky part is that graduate funding packages often aren't finalized until late spring, but you need to file FAFSA much earlier. We ended up making our best estimate based on typical funding for their program, then double-checked our math once we knew the actual numbers. Fortunately we didn't need to make corrections, but it was definitely stressful not knowing for sure! One more tip: if your grad student is considering multiple programs, try to get funding info from all of them early in the process so you can plan accordingly. Some programs are much more generous than others, which could totally change whether you meet that 50% threshold.

I'm in a similar boat with one kid potentially starting grad school and another still in undergrad! Reading through all these responses has been incredibly helpful. One thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around is the timing - it seems like we're supposed to predict support for July 2025-June 2026, but most grad school decisions and funding packages don't come out until March/April 2025. Has anyone dealt with needing to file corrections after initially submitting? I'm wondering if it's better to be conservative initially (not count the grad student) and then correct later if needed, or if corrections create more headaches than they're worth. Also, for those who've been through verification for household size - what kind of documentation did they actually ask for?