Can I Get Financial Aid, Grants, or Scholarships on SSI or SSDI?

If you’re on disability and want to go back to school, you can still get financial aid. Accepting financial aid, a grant, or a scholarship should not push you over SSI's strict income and asset limits and cost you your benefits. Most federal student aid—like Pell Grants and federal loans—won’t affect your Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at all.

Even private scholarships, grants, or cash gifts might not count as income or resources for SSI eligibility purposes, depending on how long you hold onto the money and how you spend it. Generally, non-federal funds won't affect your SSI eligibility as long as you use them for school expenses such as tuition, books, and fees.

Understanding how Social Security treats different types of aid can help you finance your education without having your SSI reduced or suspended. Below you'll find out which types of aid are safe, how long you have to spend gift money on school, and whether your SSI or SSDI benefits need to be reported on the FAFSA.

Can I Get Financial Aid While on Disability?

Many popular types of student aid don't count toward the resource or income limits for SSI and won't disqualify you for benefits if you receive them. For example, any financial aid you receive from the federal government under Title IV of the Higher Education Act or the Bureau of Indian Affairs won't count as assets, including:

• Federal education loans, including:
  • Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans
  • Direct PLUS Loans
  • Direct Consolidation Loans
• Pell Grants
• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunities Grants (FSEOG)
• TEACH Grants, and
• Federal Work-Study (a Title IV program).

You can use the money received from the above programs for any reason (such as food, housing, or utilities), and Social Security won't count it towards the SSI asset limits, meaning you can get financial aid and SSI at the same time.

Do Other Grants, Scholarships, or Gifts Count as Income?

Social Security doesn’t automatically exclude money (gifts, grants, or scholarships) you receive from your family and friends, nonprofit organizations, or private businesses when considering your income. But the money might not count against you either.

SSI Limits on How You Use Other Grants, Scholarships, and Gifts

You'll need to use gifts, grants, or scholarships to pay tuition, fees, or other necessary educational expenses. Otherwise, they’ll count as income for SSI purposes. Necessary educational expenses include:

• supplies like paper, pens, and notebooks
• textbooks
• student activity costs, such as lab fees, and
• any disability-related expenses needed for you to go to school (for example, if you need specialized transportation because you can't drive or take a bus).

The SSI Nine-Month Limit for Other Grants, Scholarships, and Gifts

You have nine months after receiving non-federal grants, scholarships, or gifts to use them to pay your education expenses. The nine months begin the month after the month you receive the educational assistance. Once nine months have passed, any money you have left will count toward SSI’s resource limit for the next (10th) month. (20 C.F.R. § 416.1250.)

Using Other Grants, Scholarships, or Gifts for Non-Educational Expenses

If you set aside or use any of the money you receive from non-federal grants, scholarships, or gifts for something other than educational expenses (like rent or groceries), Social Security will count it as unearned income in the month that it's used for something other than school. (20 C.F.R. § 416.1124(c)(3).)

Also note that any interest or dividends you're paid on unspent private educational grants, scholarships, fellowships, or gifts count as income. If you receive a gift of stocks or bonds, or earn interest on private scholarship funds you deposit into a savings account, that could be counted as income. But interest earned on educational assistance under Title IV or the Bureau of Indian Affairs doesn’t count for SSI purposes.

Can an ABLE Account Help Me Protect My SSI?

Yes, and ABLE accounts are especially useful if you receive educational money you can't spend right away. An ABLE (Achieving a Better Life Experience) account is a tax-advantaged savings account for people with disabilities. The first $100,000 in an ABLE account doesn't count toward SSI's $2,000 resource limit, and the money grows tax-free as long as you spend it on qualified disability expenses, which include education, along with housing, transportation, health care, and assistive technology.

This is a practical fix for the nine-month rule. If a gift or private scholarship is more than you can put toward school within nine months, you can move the leftover into an ABLE account instead of letting it push you over the resource limit. (In the earlier example, Keegan could deposit whatever she hasn't used by the ninth month into an ABLE account, and it wouldn't count against her.)

If you already receive SSI disability or SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), you automatically meet ABLE's disability requirement. You can contribute up to $20,000 a year (the 2026 limit) from any source, and you can choose any state's ABLE program, not just the one where you live.

What Are the Income and Resource Limits for SSI?

Social Security counts income differently depending on whether it’s earned or unearned when deciding whether you meet SSI’s income limit. Earned income is money you receive from working, including:

• wages
• tips
• self-employment earnings, or
• pay from a work-study job that isn't federally funded.

(Federal work-study earnings are excluded altogether—see "How Does Work-Study Affect My SSI?," below.)

Unearned income is money you receive from other sources, like financial help from family or friends, interest, or dividends. Non-cash assistance, like free rent or help with utility bills, also counts as a type of unearned income called “in-kind support and maintenance,” which can affect your SSI benefits. (Learn more about how Social Security treats unearned income in our article on countable income for SSI.)

You can earn income from a part-time job—whether or not your job is through the federal work-study program—without automatically losing SSI. That’s because Social Security doesn’t count all of your earned income against the SSI limit. And if your job is through the federal work-study program, none of those earnings count at all.

If you’re a student under age 22, the Student Earned Income Exclusion (SEIE) rule means a portion of your earnings doesn’t count toward the SSI income limit. The exclusion amount changes each year. For 2026, Social Security won’t count the first $2,410 you earn each month, up to a maximum annual exclusion of $9,730—no matter how you spend that money.

Once you reach that limit, the regular SSI income rules apply to your remaining income. So, any remaining countable income will reduce your monthly benefit, and if you make too much money, you can lose SSI eligibility. To learn more about income limits, see our article on income limits and SSI eligibility.

The SSI resource limit is $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. But Social Security doesn’t consider some things—like your primary home and the main car you drive—when calculating your assets. For more information, see our article about how many resources you can have and still qualify for SSI.

How Does Work-Study Affect My SSI?

How work-study is counted depends on whether your job is funded through the federal work-study program or through your school or another organization.

Federal Work-Study Income and SSI

Federal Work-Study is a Title IV program, so the money you earn from it is treated like other Title IV aid—it's excluded from both your income and your resources for SSI, regardless of how much you earn, how you use it, or how long you hold it. Federal Work-Study earnings won't reduce your SSI payment or count toward the resource limit, and you don't need the Student Earned Income Exclusion to protect them.

Other Work-Study Income and SSI

If your work-study position is funded by your state or school rather than through the federal work-study program, those wages are ordinary earned income. Social Security counts earned income—but not all of it. If you're a student under age 22, the Student Earned Income Exclusion shields the first $2,410 a month (up to $9,730 in 2026), and the regular earned-income exclusions apply to the rest.

Will Social Security Pay for College?

Social Security disability doesn't have a specific education benefit. But being on disability won't lock you out of federal student aid—and depending on whether you receive SSDI or SSI, it can even work in your favor.

A lot comes down to how the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) treats your benefits, and the FAFSA changed significantly starting with the 2024–25 school year. You no longer hand-calculate and type in most of your income. After you give permission, the FAFSA pulls your federal tax information—including your adjusted gross income (AGI)—straight from the IRS, and it dropped many of the old questions about income that wasn't taxed. How this plays out depends on whether you get SSI or SSDI.

What Disability Income Do I Have to Include on the FAFSA?

Whether your Social Security benefit income will appear on your FAFSA application depends on the type of benefit. Because the FAFSA relies on your taxable income, the low taxable income that's common for people on disability generally helps you qualify for need-based aid.

Does SSI Count on the FAFSA?

You don't report SSI as income anywhere on the FAFSA, and it won't raise your Student Aid Index (the figure that replaced the old "Expected Family Contribution"). Untaxed benefits like SSI were removed from the FAFSA's definition of income back in 2009, so getting SSI can't hurt your eligibility for aid, Pell Grants, or student loans. And it can actually help because the FAFSA still asks whether you or someone in your household received a federal means-tested benefit (the list includes SSI, SNAP, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, and federal housing assistance). If you get SSI, answer yes. Doing so can exempt you from having to report your assets on the FAFSA, which can improve your aid picture.

Does SSDI Count on the FAFSA?

SSDI isn't a means-tested benefit, so the FAFSA doesn't ask about SSDI specifically. You no longer report SSDI separately as untaxed income. The only piece of SSDI that reaches the FAFSA is the part that's taxable, and it flows in automatically through your AGI from the IRS. (Whether any of your SSDI is taxable depends on your total income; see our article on when disability benefits are taxable.)

For many people living on a modest disability income, little (or none) of an SSDI benefit is taxable, so often SSDI doesn't affect the financial aid calculation at all.

How to Report Financial Aid to Social Security

You’re required to tell the SSA anytime you receive income or resources that could affect your SSI. That includes non-federal grants, scholarships, fellowships, and gifts from family and friends to help with your educational expenses. It doesn’t include Title IV education assistance or that provided through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

You must report this unearned income to Social Security no later than 10 days after the end of the month in which you receive it. So, if you receive a private grant on June 15, for example, you’d need to report it to the SSA by July 10.

Remember, even non-federal student aid and gifts for education won’t count against you when used for school expenses within the nine-month deadline. So, be sure to keep track of how you spend the money and document your educational expenses so that Social Security doesn’t include it as countable income.

Contact the SSA to Ask About Financial Aid

Make sure you contact the SSA if you're unsure about how educational financial aid will affect your SSI benefits. You can call the SSA at 800-772-1213 or visit your local field office to speak with someone in person.