Thanks for the tag,
@MixedAnimals77.
Disclaimer: I'm no longer in vet school; I left during my second year at Iowa State. I don't remember the exact numbers for everything, so I'm estimating here.
The above is correct about the FAFSA---as professional students, everyone is considered independent for financial aid purposes regardless of age, so everyone is eligible to take out loans to the school's calculated CoA. If you're attending a particularly expensive IS school or an OOS school, then you may have to take out Grad PLUS loans to have everything covered (the Federal Stafford loans can only be borrowed to a maximum of $40.5k/year, which is more than enough for most schools if you're paying IS rates). If the school you're attending has a total CoA that is less than $40.5k/year, then you can only take out that full amount. For instance, at Iowa State, IS CoA was ~$38k/year, so that's the maximum amount that we were allowed to take out.
In regards to being able to afford everything.... it really, really depends upon the school and how much they offer you, what you're going to be responsible for paying, and the location. In my case, at Iowa State, we were allotted ~$6k/semester for living costs---tuition and fees were deducted from the full loan automatically and we received the leftovers via direct deposit. Most of my classmates seemed to do fine on, but not everyone. I know of at least 3-4 people who ended up having to move because they could not afford their rent on that, and those who had to pay for
everything (car payment, cell phone, health insurance, etc.) tended to struggle, especially if they were single. Those with spouses who worked or family support to help cover some of those living costs did fine. I know that one of my friends tried to appeal to financial aid to let her take out an additional $1k-2k loan to help afford her rent and they wouldn't allow her to. Supposedly they're more lenient with loaning you additional money if you've got children.
In my case, dividing the total ~$12k/year living cost allotment left me at about $1k/month. My apartment's rent was ~$600/month, though that did cover all utilities, electricity, internet, and amenities such as pool and gym membership. There were some places in Ames that are $300-500 in rent, but it's a bit of a wash as to whether or not it actually would have been any cheaper because I'd be on the hook for covering everything that was included in rent where I was at. I often wired my parents some money because they were struggling, so I'd say that, on an average month, I'd have ~$300 to cover everything else. This doesn't include the money that I made at work (which wasn't much, but hey... an extra pizza or round of takeout every few weeks is nice). That said, I was more of a traditional student and didn't really have much in extra bills to cover as my car is paid off, I walked to class or took the bus if the weather was bad so gas was rarely an issue, I was still on my parent's health insurance, and I didn't do a lot of discretionary spending outside of textbooks, food, and occasionally eating/hanging out with friends.
Of course, this was just my
one experience at
one school.
It's definitely not impossible to work as a vet student, but it does make things harder. I worked 2-3 jobs during my time in vet school and honestly I think that my grades (and, by extension, confidence and mental health) would have been a lot better if I hadn't and instead only focused on school. If you decide to work during vet school, I would suggest that 1) you wait until you're at least a semester in so that you have a better idea of the demands of vet school and can evaluate whether or not you can realistically add a job to that, and 2) try your damnedest to get a job at the school itself or in the teaching hospital, because they're used to employing students and subsequently are often far more understanding of the time constraints that you have and bad test weeks and the like than a "regular" job elsewhere. I will caution that you shouldn't expect to be able to work more than maybe 10 hours/week, and you almost certainly won't be able to work during your clinical year, but most schools will allow you to take out additional loans during that year since you'll be enrolled during the summer so it evens out.
So, really, I suppose what it comes down to is this: the CoA estimates at most schools will be enough for the vast majority of students. Some schools are dead-on in their estimates, some overestimate, some underestimate. If you know any current students at the schools that you're considering, I would politely ask them if they can share their budget with you or at least give you an idea of how they do on the amount of loans that they receive. And try to get as many perspectives as possible, since everyone is in different situations and has different expectations. If in doubt, I would shoot an email to financial aid and explain your concerns and see if they can better detail the breakdown or even perhaps offer you additional loans if you can show that it won't be enough to cover your needs (who knows, maybe some schools are more willing to do this?).