<p>I was wondering if anybody could help clear up some discrepancies I had about undergraduate financial aid. The way I understand it is that parents pay the same amount towards higher education, no matter the number of children in college (so like, if there are 2 children in college, the cost is split in half). </p>
<p>However, I have an older sister attending law school next year. Does her attending professional school cut my aid, or do undergrad institutions see it as me as the only child in college, since she's not an "undergraduate"? </p>
<p>Hope that wasn't worded too poorly. I would appreciate any help from people who have experienced this or know about it.</p>
<p>It’s going to depend on the policies at each school and whether your parents are providing a substantial portion of her support.</p>
<p>If your parent are supporting her (providing more than half her support and thus making her dependent for tax purposes), then you will need to ask the FA office at each school you’re applying to. Some will allow a sib in professional school to be counted; some won’t.</p>
<p>But depending on where you apply to, having a sib in college may or may not affect the amount of FA you receive since most colleges do not meet full need anyway.</p>
<p>Many schools won’t consider yous sis as a student. Some might but maybe not the same as an undergrad sibling. Parents have a lesser expectation to pay for grad school. On fafsa you don’t include her as being in college.</p>
<p>It’s going to depend on the school policy. The level of support your parents provide doesn’t matter a speck for this detemination.</p>
<p>We had a kid in grad school when the younger sib went to undergrad. Some schools were very willing to count older sibling in the college student count, and others simply were not.</p>
<p>You need to inquire at each undergrad school to which you are applying. They will tell you their policy regarding this.</p>
<p>The basic assumption by many/most schools is that parents are responsible for UNDERGRAD. Parents paying for grad school is considered a choice…and not a necessary one since loans are available for grad/med/law school for that student to procure.</p>
<p>Some schools will consider that there is an adult child in grad school, but typically it won’t be the 60/60 split that a CSS school would normally do. And, you won’t get a split EFC from FAFSA because that grad student will have his/her own FAFSA as an independent.</p>
<p>"The way I understand it is that parents pay the same amount towards higher education, no matter the number of children in college (so like, if there are 2 children in college, the cost is split in half). "</p>
<p>This is rarely true. When 2 siblings are in undergrad (not grad school), FAFSA EFC splits 50/50, but FAFSA schools rarely meet need…so it’s not true that parents pay the same no matter the number in school. A family could have an EFC of 6000 for each of their 3 kids and have to pay a total $60,000 per year at schools that don’t meet need.</p>
<p>And for the schools that do meet need, those schools usually use CSS Profile and the split is 60/60 for students in UNDERGRAD.</p>
<p>It looks like you’re looking at Rice. I don’t know what their policy is for siblings in grad school. Have you asked them?</p>
<p>It’s unlikely that your sister will get much aid from her law school besides loans unless she has some hook and she’s offered a rare scholarship.</p>
<p>Thumper had wise words about how schools differ, I “assumed”, always a wrong thing, colleges only looked at undergrad, but a few did look at my son getting his masters at a university and it helped. (only one daughter went to a college like that though)
Some colleges spell it out, I remember Brown saying it would have to be certain reasons for them to consider, maybe the student living home, etc., others we had to email.
It did help, a little of course, but it did help and I would never turn down money. : )</p>