My younger son attends a CSS Profile school that I think is likely to continue to take sibling college expenses into account even after FAFSA discontinues doing so.
If his older brother decides to take a 9th semester (but not a 10th) any thoughts on how this would affect the younger son’s financial aid package? Would the “discount” be cut in half, since the older sibling is only attending one semester and not two?
The Profile asks if the sibling is attending full time or half time. I think our sitiation is “full time”, but only for half the academic year. I don’t even understand how we would report this – except via a letter to the FA office.
@kelsmom can explain. This is supposed to happen as of the 2023-2024 FAFSA year. But she posted that the current draft still asks for other siblings in college. It’s possible all the changes won’t be implemented …or maybe they will.
Also, the only way to know how Profile schools will treat their institutional awards…is to ask the school financial aid folks if they have any plans about this.
But just wondering — or even based on others’ past experiences – about the impact of a sibling who will only attend college for the first semester. In the past, did colleges give the full “discount” or only half of what they would give.
I don’t know about profile schools, but the FAFSA is not updated for the second semester. I had two in school at one time. One took a semester off (spring Sophomore year) and we’d filled out that FAFSA long before (Jan of freshman year). Didn’t change anything for other daughter. Then when I filled out the FAFSA for the next year, she was already back in school.
Remmberwith Profile schools they are going to ask how much you are paying for the sibling.
If you were paying $20k for the year and now you are only paying 10K because older sibling is only going to be in school for one semester, the college will expect you to use the money from term 2 to pay for college for child 2 because you will have freed up 10K
Our colleges never asked what we were paying for the siblings in college. We just had to provide verification that the sibling WAS in college at the same time.
I know some colleges do ask what sibling costs are, but I don’t believe every college does.
And D1’s school only asked once, the first year. I only had to list which school she was in, not how much I was paying (and I was actually paying very little as D2 was on basically a full scholarship). Both were FAFSA only schools, although D2’s was private and expensive.