College of Health Sciences: Institutional Policy for Parent Information

Parent information must be included on the FAFSA or Renewal Application in order to be eligible for assistance from all Rush-administered funds. Rush-administered funds are need-based loans and grants awarded by the Financial Aid. Eligibility is based on parental information since Rush has insufficient funds to meet the needs of all the students who qualify for aid as independent. Therefore, the university uses a more restrictive definition of an independent student for distribution of its funds. RETURNING students who provided parent information in a previous year are not required to submit parent information again, and the same parent information will be used for the next year. Parents may always submit updated information if so desired, and that new information will be used and supersede the prior year data.

Complete parent data must be included in both the FAFSA and the Institutional Application for Financial Aid. This applies to students in: 

• College of Health Sciences - undergraduate and graduate programs ; or
• a returning Rush student for whom parent data was required in the previous year in order to receive Rush-administered financial aid; or
• Students who were instructed to provide parent information when completing the FAFSA. 

If you fall into any category above, then parent data is required before Rush-administered aid will be awarded.

If parent data is not provided, the applicant will be awarded funds from non-institutional aid sources such as the Federal Subsidized and Unsubsidized Stafford Loans. Federal Perkins Loan funds will be awarded to students with preference given to those who have provided parental information and demonstrate financial need.

(Graduate and federally independent students - submission of parent data does not mean that a contribution will be expected from them; parent data is used as a rationing device only.)

Parent income and amount of institutional aid

Parent data is used to determine the amount of institutional grants and loans awarded by the Office of Student Financial Aid. Submitting parental data does not effect the amount of Federal Stafford Loan that a graduate student is eligible to receive; however, parent data is used to determine the type and amount of institutional grant and loan. The amount of institutional aid varies by college and program, so the amount and number of students receiving institutional aid will be different among programs.

The Office of Student Financial Aid
600 South Paulina Street, Suite 440 Chicago, Illinois 60612
(312) 942-6256
financial_aid@rush.edu