In New York you would have to go through SONYMA. The income only matters at the time of qualificaiton. It is a great program for a person with a good job but is now going abck to grad school. There income is artificially low during this period of time so they would qualify as low income earners. Once they come out of school their income typically rises dramatically and they now have a residence and a low cost loan program. I beleive one of the other benefit is that they don’t include federal student loan debt into the formula.