While I think parents need to treat their children fairly, I don’t think that means that each child is entitled to have equal amounts of money spent on them. Kids are different, family circumstances change.
In any case, Georgetown is not NYU. I’m not saying one is better or worse than the other - just that they aren’t the same, and their financial aid policies aren’t the same.
I think this illustrates the downside of ED – both because the son is faced with a decision without yet knowing what other colleges he may later be accepted to, and because there is no incentive for a school be generous with financial aid during the ED round. But what’s done is done.
The OP has been very forthright here about what the family can afford – I assume the same information is being conveyed to the son as well. Any kid who is smart enough to get into NYU ought to be able to do the math to figure out the difference between $38K and $72K.
Child #2 needs to be told that, like his sibling, he needs to get into a “meets need” school. The point about paying full cost for Child #1 will still apply to Child #2 during Child #2’s last two years.
The parents were full pay for Child #1’s first two years…and will be full pay for Child #2’s LAST TWO YEARS. So, it is fair in that regard.
If Child #2 can’t find or get accepted to a “meets need” school, then he needs to find a school that with merit will have a net cost of about $35k per year. Unfortunately, most of the schools that give big merit have had deadlines that have passed.
One big negative about applying ED is that kids get often wait for results before they look elsewhere…and then merit deadlines have past.
In this particular case the parents EFC is high enough to cover the costs of attendance at an in-state public – so that is also a backup option for this particular student. While that may not be the son’s preference, his choice of NYU indicates that he is comfortable attending a large U with all that is entailed in that… so probably wouldn’t run into the sort of “fit” problems with a state U. that a kid who had their heart set on a small LAC would face. (And personally I think the flagships in many states are of equal or better quality than NYU, for a whole myriad of reasons.)
Just a note to the OP: before you give up entirely on NYU, verify from the financial aid office that they took into account that S#1 is enrolled in college. My situation was a little different, but I found that at least two, and possibly more, of the colleges that admitted my daughter wrote up their financial aid offers without considering her brother’s college enrollment, pending receipt of documentation proving his enrollment.
The difference is that my son was not enrolled in college at the time my daughter applied, but was in the process of applying as a transfer to return to college – so at the time of completing the FAFSA I did not know what college he would be attending – which is a very logical reason for colleges to disregard his status pending more information.
Since NYU does not meet full need I think this is a long shot, but if your FAFSA EFC with 2 in college is $38K, that suggests that FAFSA EFC with only one would about about twice that, which would render you ineligible for need-based aid… and it is certainly within the realm of possibility that someone in the NYU financial aid office mistakenly miscalculated EFC.