Most Rush University students qualify for some type of financial aid. But what do you need to do to qualify? We’ll help you figure that out here.
In order to qualify for federal, state and most types of institutional assistance, you must meet the following criteria:
This is necessary to determine for many aid programs. Know which you are.
You are a full-time student if you meet the following:
You are a half-time student if you meet the following:
For Pell Grant purposes, three-quarter time is considered 9 or more credits, and less than half-time is considered 1 to 5 credits.
If you are an international student, you are not eligible for federal aid and most types of Rush University institutional aid.
If you have a cosigner who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you may be eligible for private educational loans from U.S. banks.
Parent information is required if you are a medical student and you want to be considered for need-based discretionary funding through Rush.
Beginning with the 2016-17 academic year, medical students who will be at least 30 years of age by the start date of their program are not required to submit parent information in order to receive full consideration for Rush’s need-based discretionary aid. For students who will not meet the age requirement by the start date of their program, exceptions to the parent information requirement will only be made in extreme situations.
The new age limit applies only to students starting on or after fall 2016. All students who began their program in a term prior to fall 2016 will remain subject to the parent information requirement for the entirety of their program.
Submitting parental data does not affect the amount of federal Stafford loan that you as an independent undergraduate or a graduate student are eligible to receive.
We only request parent data on your FAFSA during your first year at Rush. If you are a returning student who has provided parent information in a previous year, you will not be required to submit an annual update to your parents’ information. Students who choose to submit parent information on their annual application will have the parent information in their student file updated to reflect any changes.
Please note that if you are a dependent undergraduate student, you are required to submit your parent information with each financial aid application.
Simply put, need-based grants and discretionary loan programs are limited. We do not have enough of these dollars to distribute evenly to all students in all programs. As a result, parent data is used to determine the amount of institutional grants and loans awarded by the Office of Student Financial Aid.
We do not expect that parents of independent students will be contributing to their child’s education. The purpose of collecting this information is to compare students who might otherwise look very similar on a financial aid application across economic backgrounds.
To satisfy the parent information requirement, you must do the following:
Maintaining a good credit history is important because many Rush students find it necessary to borrow money through a credit-based loan program. Your lender will review your credit history and score to determine if you qualify for the loan program they offer.
If you have delinquencies on your credit reports or a high debt level relative to income, you may be considered “high risk” by loan providers. As such, you may be denied a loan, offered a high interest rate or need a cosigner/endorser on your loan application.
If you are a graduate or professional student, you are likely to need a credit-based federal loan if you need to finance a significant portion of your educational costs.
If you are an undergraduate student who already has a bachelor’s degree and is accepted into an undergraduate program, you are ineligible for undergraduate federal or state grants, such as Pell Grants, Illinois State Monetary Award Program Grants. Additionally, annual loan limits are unlikely to cover all of your tuition costs at the undergraduate level.
Rush University is unable to fund you if, due to a poor credit record, you are unable to receive loan assistance through federal or private credit-based loans. If you have a poor credit rating, you must take necessary steps now to improve your rating so that these credit-based loans can be approved. Students should also remember that credit checks will be necessary during their time at Rush and any time a new credit-based loan is requested.
You are able to request a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus annually. You are strongly encouraged to review these reports at different times of the year to monitor activity on your credit reports.