<p>Not exactly. Yes, the parental part of the FAFSA EFC will be cut in half for each student. So your son at Penn State will have an EFC about half of what it would have been. But…Penn State does not guarantee to meet full need and simply does not for most of their students. They may not give your son a dime more. Happens all of the time with schools that don’t guarantee to meet full need. Unless your EFC goes into levels for entitlement like PELL or some state grants if in the picture, that son won’t get more. My SIL nephew goes to Penn State, gets a little aid, and that his sister is now in college didn’t up his aid a dime. In fact, it went down since Penn State expects upper classmen to take on more of the load each year. Many schools do that, even full need ones, and they build that into their aid formulas.</p>
<p>Rice uses PROFLE, I believe, and it’s own definition of expected contribution, not FAFSA EFC in coming up with need. You can run your numbers through their NPC to get some idea of what you will be expected to pay for your second son, with 2 in college. </p>
<p>Your FAFSA EFC works about the way you are thinking it would, but there isn’t a school in the country that I know of that guarantees to meet full need as defined by FAFSA EFC. Usually, the FAFSA EFC tells you what the rock bottom minimum you will be expected to pay before getting penny one of federal money like Work study, subsidized loans, SEOG, etc. That’s about all it guarantees you. That you have to pay at least that before getting any federal funds.</p>