<p>All of the generalities in the world do not make any difference for individual cases, and with colleges and financial aid, the generalities are even within such specialized categories.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that most colleges do expect students to take increasing responsibilities for the college costs. Even the most generous schools of all tend to have what they call a “Student Contribution” which is what the student is expected to pay. I’ve seen this at schools that are very generous, the most generous and even for EFC zero students. They still have to come up with that student contribution. Some schools are no loan schools, which leaves those Direct Loans Available to use for that contributions. Some have part or all of that loan tucked into the financial aid package. Yes, there is a tendency for the schools to increase the loans in the package to take advantage of the Direct Loans increases And, yes, the increases in cost each year can be added to the student contribution so that the aid packages stay about the same as freshman year. THat is accepted and usually expected practice. </p>
<p>I don’t know a single school that guarantees to meet full need that uses the FAFSA EFC formulas. THey tend to use their own formulas using PROFILE to collect additonal info. THe FAFSA parental EFC is just about cut in half per student when there are two students in college at the same time. By a 1/3 when there are three. Not the case with PROFILE schools as a rule. Usually, the institutional expected contribution for the parent is multiplied by .60 and .4. And remember these schools usually have an expected student contribution running at $2-4K per student that is not affected by number of kids in college at the same time. </p>
<p>So lets say you are expected to pay $20K as a parent, and your student is expected to pay $4K at a $60K school for year one. The next year, with two at that same school, if both kids are expected and the costs and fin info stay the same, you would be expected to pay $12K per kid, for a total of $24K as a parent, and your first child would likely be expected to come up with $5K and your second with 4K. So the first year, as a family, $24K was expended for one child and the second year $33K for two at that same college. If costs went up $3K (5%) per student which is not unusual, the sticker price for each went up $6K, and how the school would distribute that increase, including what they would absorb is anyone’s guess. Maybe $2K more that you, the parent. would have to pay, $2K that returning student has to pay, and $1K more for the new student in expected student contribution, for example. All made up numbers. </p>
<p>“There is a difference between need-blind admission and meeting full financial need. Need-blind schools may not necessarily meet the full need. Some colleges are need-aware and meeting full need of admitted students.”</p>
<p>Yes. there is a difference. Most schools, almost all schools are need blind in admissions. Most schools will not take need into account in accepting you, give you what they can in aid and gap most students with need. It’s up to you to come up with the money. Very few schools guarantee to meet full need even as they define it and as I said earlier, none guarantee to meet full need as defined by FAFSA EFC even,much less by how a family would define need. Very few schools are need aware in admissions as it does take extra work to balance need and acceptances, and one does need a lot more resources and coordination betw fin aid and admissions to operate that way. The schools that are need aware tend to be fairly selective and a number of them do meet full need (as the define it) or close to it, to those students that have need and that they decide to accept. They are need aware for budgetary reasons and also to keep their yield high, as most students who have need and don’t get it met are likely not to go to the school because they won’t be able to afford it. So you have a kid who needs $50K to go to a school, you know that it’s likely going to be tough for such a family to come up with even the expected contributions so if you gap him, he’s probably not going to go there. Also if you need to come up with 5 more students to accept, your money is better spent if you let that one go though he would have been an accept had your school been need blind in admissions and use that last $50K to accept five kids with about $10K in need. That is how some need aware schools operate, enrollment management, they call it. </p>
<p>There are schools that are need aware but meet full need of accepted students (F&M, Wesleyan), some that are need aware AND do also do NOT meet full need of accepted students (GWU) and some schools that are need blind and meet full need (Ivies, Duke, Stanford, Williams) and then most of the schools in this country that are need blind and do not meet full need of their accepted students. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that if you need aid, just applying to those schools that guarantee to meet full need usually means applying to the most selective schools in terms of admissions, so getting accepted is an issue. Those who are top students in an applicant pool of those schools that do not meet full need, may well get full need met. I’ve said a number of times that NYU which does not guarantee to meet full need and doesn’t most of the time, can be generous to some of their students and give a more generous package to some select students than they get elsewhere. They just don’t guarantee to do it. Also some of the schools that do not have a lot of financial aid, have some hefty merit money that can go to the top students, needy or not that can bring the price down drastically. I know kids who have gotten full tuition awards at state school that do not guarantee to meet full need, but more than meet it for those top kids. Absolutely, some of the got more money than Harvard would have awarded them. </p>