Curious: Earn Bachelors and Masters at Same Time & Get Financial Aid?

This just popped into my head. Now, I know there are folks on this forum who have pursued two different degrees at the same time. What I don't know is if they used financial aid. So, just to satisfy my curiosity, I'd like to know...

Who here has pursued a bachelor's degree and master's degree at the same time? Was it a combined degree program (BA/MA, BS/MS)? Was it just two separate programs? Were you able to get federal financial aid for both programs when it was NOT a combined degree program?

 

It is possible to work on two degree programs at the same time. However, it is a lot of work. As far as financial aid you can only use it for one program at a time. It isn't possible to get financial aid for two programs simultaneously.

The only way that one could possibly be able to pay for both programs would be to borrow the maximum amounts for graduate (masters) program and use the monies borrowed to pay tuition toward the undergraduate program. But it would be hard to do so unless the costs were lower and could be paid for.

Only one exception comes to mind. If you were close to finishing your Bachelor's degree sometimes a school will allow you to mix to enroll in undergraduate courses and a few graduate courses. But to pay for two programs at the same time user ng from na ciao aid would not be permissible.

 

In a strict sense this is not possible but there are two ways to do this in practice. One way is that some schools have "accelerated programs" where one gets a BA and an MA in five years. My understanding is that during the last two years of such a program one can borrow at graduate amounts even though on paper one is still an undergrad.

The other option deals with prerequisites. If you apply for an masters but don't have all the necessary courses then sometimes the school will admit you as a master's candidate but allow you to take undergraduate courses to make up the work you are missing. I believe there is limited to the number of undergraduate course on can take this way, however.

 

Thanks for the answers. They were pretty much what I thought they would be. Curiosity satisfied.

 

once you complete your first bachelor's degree, access to Pell Grant money is locked. If I were doing it, I'd do it the other way. I'd use Pell on an undergrad and stretch that out to the max time- which I think might be 6 years. I don't like the idea of borrowing $, but if you borrowed enough to pay for undergrad, the Pell would come to you in overage. Schools like Harvard University Extension allow graduate enrollment in up to 3 classes without an application, and those can be for graduate study.