I’m going to join college in fall of 2016 and I have three sisters… freshman, sophomore and kindergarten. Will my sisters receive less financial aid? If i don’t use all my financial aid,will my sisters receive more? please let me know. For my financial aid, my EFC was 0
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Your sisters are freshman and sophomores in college now?? Or high school??
If they are in college, what aid did their colleges give them? Are you all going to the same college?
Your aid has no affect on them, even if you don’t use it.
Multiple siblings in college does affect aid, but in a positive way. Your EFC will be less when multiple siblings are in college. If your EFC is 0 without siblings in school at the same time, then it obviously can’t go down any lower.
Having multiple siblings in college at the same time MIGHT affect aid…and it might not. It all depends on the need based aid awarding policies at the colleges.
EFC is already 0…can’t get any lower
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Will my sisters receive less financial aid? If i don’t use all my financial aid,will my sisters receive more?
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This is what I was answering. Sibs will not receive less aid simply because this student is now going to college. And, if this student doesn’t “use” all of her FA, her sibs will NOT receive more.
There is a bigger difference in aid having 2 in college than having extra siblings living at home (some schools consider private school tuition, others don’t). How much you receive from '‘meets full need" schools like Yale and Stanford really depend a lot on your parents’ incomes first, number in college, then other factors like number in the family.
There really isn’t anything you can do about it other than going to a college that awards big merit aid.
@thirdkidislost Your situation is different. You’ll have fewer kids in college AND your family size is getting smaller.
Yale and S give super-aid, so that also means that those schools expected your family to pay less.
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Even if I managed to get into one of those great schools with fabulous need based aid, I will be looking at a much higher cost for 4 years than my siblings had. My parents will not provide more for me in total dollars than they provided for my siblings, so I expect I will have to take out loans - even though my siblings did not need to. And of course, the COA before FA will be higher in 2017-2021 for me than it was for my sister in 2013-17.
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Although your parents are free to do what they want, I think they’re being unreasonable. Costs go up every year, so giving the same dollar amount for each child isn’t fair for the younger/youngest child.
Your parents also should be able to afford to pay more now that the family is smaller. Plus you can’t help that you’re the youngest and won’t have siblings in college the whole time.
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so I expect I will have to take out loans
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While HYPS don’t put loans in pkgs, other schools do…so you may ALREADY have loans in your FA pkg that will have nothing to do with the amount that your parents have to pay.
Are your parents going to co-sign loans to cover the rest? How much would you borrow?
If your EFC is really $0, is it possible that it will also be $0 with only one kiddo in college?