"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Hillary Israeli
says...

In ,
Banty wrote:

*I did apply for financial aid as something of a back-up for my first
year at
the
*institution where I obtained my doctorate, and in that process I was
treated as
*something of a beggar (more than when I applied as an undergraduate).
Because
*that's not the usual path for financing graduate school. I would put
forth that
*the response your mother got was exactly because you and she,
apparently, were
*trying to go the student aid route.

You say that as if we did something unusual or wrong. I suppose I haven't
explained things at all well.

It's not so much that it's 'wrong' as it's not required for many more
students
practically the way it is for undergraduate school. Because of the
presence of
the option to borrow against professional earnings in the fairly near
future.
After all, as you said the financial aid person who handed out the packets
did
so just in case someone qualified. She wasn't exactly saying "here's your
opporunity". There's nothing 'wrong' in checking that out, but the
stringent
requirements really should not have been a surprise. When I considered
medical
school in the early '80s, the answer came down to the same pretty much (I
was
independant by then, but had no assets) - the expectation was that I
borrow
against my future earnings as a physician. Else I be sponsored by the
military
or other government program in exchange for a period of service where they
choose. The vet students I knew at CSU had mostly taken out a lot of
loans,
except for a few foreigns with national sponsorships.

Law school is apparently the same way. My brother just finished his law
program last Spring, almost 100K in debt (and still has no job, sigh...) He
had been independent and actually working for several years, and while he
had more than enough $$ for college without loans (mostly merit-based, plus
some extra aid available to dependents of VA state employees at state
schools), he was on his own for law school. In comparison, when I went to
grad school in education, while they weren't exactly throwing $$ at me, I
was able to get a pretty nice grant from the state of TX, plus a TA/RA ship
in the Human Sciences department, and was able to get by with almost no
loans (and those were repaid by the govt at 20% a year, for the first 5
years I taught since I chose to teach in title I schools-and still do, as a
matter of fact).

My husband had an RA ship his first year of grad school, and took out some
small loans, then got a fellowship from NSF which paid the bills the rest of
the way through.