My SO [22M] and I [21F] are both out of state students working on our undergraduate degrees in engineering fields. We've been together for three years and want to get married after we graduate, but I've been looking into the financial aid we could get if we were married already and we've talked about this multiple times.
Currently, him and I are considered dependents of our families and therefore our financial aid is based on our parents. Because my mom and dad make a nice living, my financial is basically zero even though I have two sisters also working on their undergrad degrees.
His financial aid won't change much (if at all) by being married because of how much his parents make.
For the last two years him and I have been trying to gain Oregon residency to get in state tuition, but because of our ages we're still considered dependent on our parents which makes getting in state residency really difficult to almost impossible for us.
Once we're married, we'd be immediately considered independent from our parents and only his and my wages would count for financial aid, and we could much more easily get in state residency for reduced tuition.
Getting married involves more than just saying you are on paper tough, and I'm not sure how it would effect anything else for me in terms of finances outside of schooling, taxes, what it would mean for both of our parents and their taxes, etc.
On paper, it seems as easy as getting married by the courts legally and then making financial aid easier. I know it can't be as simple as that, and I don't know what else I need to consider or think about before deciding its a good idea.
Any help or ideas would be appreciated, my SO and I are happy to wait to marry but if it'll help our financial position to be married on paper now then we would like to set ourselves up for the best financial future possible.
Thank you in advance!
Submitted January 17, 2017 at 01:22PM by GwentanimoBay http://ift.tt/2jtgD96
