How can anyone be expected to compare financial aid packages for 2022 freshman if everything will be thrown into question for Fall 2023 with the new FAFSA formula? (They will no longer be splitting the EFC among all siblings.) With twins starting college this fall, should we expect our EFC for each child to essentially double for 2023? A college that’s affordable this fall could be out of the question the next three years. Does anyone know how colleges are addressing this?
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I’m pretty sure the elimination of the discount for multiple kids in college has been delayed until 2024-25. FAFSA Simplification Delayed until School Year 2024-25 - PayForED
This may impact students who currently qualify for pell grants. Most FAFSA only schools don’t meet full need, so these changes might not matter too much (aside from the Pell issue).
CSS profile schools may or may not eliminate this discount in their own proprietary formulas, one would have to speak with their FA departments (some may have already decided if they will change their formulas, while others probably haven’t). For the schools that meet full need the elimination of the sibling discount won’t be an issue.
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This doesn’t seem so clear or trivial. If a FAFSA school offered a significant Merit award, and then added on odd $ amount of Grants to bring the family almost exactly to their EFC, then it seems likely that the Grant amount will go away when the EFC goes up significantly (~doubles) in 2024. This can be thousands of dollars per year.
Clearly, that’s a conversation to have with each Fin Aid office, but it seems that some of them have not thought that far ahead and just answer “we will continue to meet need.” So it becomes a guessing game whether or not your cost will go up by thousands if “need” is defined by the EFC (or it’s 2024 name “Student Aid Index.”)
the majority of schools in the US - including community colleges and public schools – use the FAFSA to 1) determine if your kid is pell grant eligible 2) obtain student loans from the federal government.
you have to be pretty low income to get a pell grant. and with two in college, it still has to be pretty low to get pell grants. besides pells, most FAFSA colleges dont offer grants for financial aid. mostly loans. someone earlier this year said it would be disastrous for families to not split the EFC with twins. but i can’t see that happening. . . . eg: you have an efc of 10K. (not pell eligible). divided by 2 = efc of 5k each. That gives a $1k pell to each kid app. SO - is that $2K really a difference maker?
we had two in college for four years; the split EFC helped us with one kid getting a subsidized loan of $3K for two years. I guess that was a small help. but not in any way a difference maker. I do hope it all works out for you all. and it does look like it’s now 23/24; in which we will have two in college again. so maybe a subsidied loan for one kid for one year.
And yet, haven’t there been multiple articles on how colleges are changing the loan approach? For example:
I am not sure many FAFSA only schools stack aid in this way, nor do most FAFSA only schools get close to FAFSA EFC (SAI) because most don’t meet full need (they gap, often in the tens of thousands of dollars)…it might be more helpful if you tell us the schools under consideration.
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The schools mentioned in this article are not FAFSA only schools, they are CSS Profile schools (and they all meet full need too). I can’t think of one FAFSA only school that doesn’t package loans (of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t any).
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Sounds like there are 3 types of schools:
CSS
FAFSA-only
Other?
Perhaps we are talking about schools in the Other category, who are not CSS schools, but who stack aid? Will PM you. Don’t want to derail OP.
eta: I guess I can’t PM your locked account?
There are FAFSA only schools, the vast majority don’t meet full need for all (but they might for some students they really want to attend). It often doesn’t matter what your FAFSA EFC is for these schools because they aren’t generally going to get close to that (the financial aid package will often leave a gap between your EFC and what the school is offering).
CSS Profile schools look deeper into a family’s financial picture, have proprietary formulas to calculate a family’s contribution. Many of these schools meet full need for all undergrads.
Some schools in both categories stack aid. Most Profile schools do not stack aid.
Run each school’s net price calculator to get an estimate of what your COA will be.
You can PM me by going to your account icon, clicking the envelope, and entering my handle in the ‘to’ field
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Hi again. Thanks for all the replies. For one example, Lafayette College offered my daughter a generous grant and a small subsidized loan that specifically covers the full amount above her EFC which is $30,000 (we don’t qualify for Pell). It was explained to me on another forum that if her individual EFC is $30,000, that means our family EFC is really $60,000. Even though they are a CSS school, they showed the EFC in their calculations. Most of the offers she’s received have all been in the same ballpark. If that amount doubles and goes up to $60,000 in subsequent years for her alone, there’s just no way. I guess I’ll have to call each school individually to see what they say.
For those with an EFC of $10,000, yes $2k could be a game changer. Don’t forget with that EFC the AGI is maybe $50k with very limited assets (probably less than $50k). $2,000 is a lot of money to most people. That said, as someone with an only child I always kind of resented the split EFC for those with more than one 
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from what i’ve gathered, schools that use CSS make their own guidelines. If you have twins, the schools can chose to do what they want to do - like add in an extra line about having two in college at the same time when determining need. I wonder if that EFC now for the school is just an easy baseline way to start determining need; and in the future when the EFC formula changes, it’ll not be baseline for this school. ?? the school should know. but if they offer grant aid with two in college, i’d hope it would continue.
yes - i get that. $2K to some is a alot. It would be incredibly hard to send two kids to school at the same time if low income no matter what. In our state, anyone with an income of <65K, kids can get free tuition to any state school. And don’t forget the AOTC tax credit, which helps offset any tuition paid for incomes under cetain levels.
The EFC you are seeing in a school’s NPC result or cost estimate is NOT the same thing as the EFC that FAFSA will spit out. Yes, it’s confusing, because they both stand for Expected Family Contribution, but at least in the case of the FAFSA EFC, the number in no way represents what the family is really expected to contribute. Thankfully, FAFSA is moving away from the misleading use of “EFC” as the resulting number when the FAFSA calculation is done - the number will soon be known as the Student Aid Index.
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I have twins. The financial aid packages we’ve received with admission letters specifically say that aid calculations have been determined based on having two students in college at the same time. All of them are CSS schools.
Is the argument that seems to be emerging from this thread that CSS schools most likely won’t change their formulas in 2024-25 even though the FAFSA calculation will be changing?
None of us can answer that question. Each school must be asked that specifically, preferably in an email (for a paper trail in case they don’t follow through).
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Remember….colleges can do whatever they want to do in terms of awarding their own institutional grant money.
YES! And that seems a great reason to get something from them in writing that covers the EFC->SAI transition.
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At this point…you are not going to get anything in writing because since this is now pushed off to 2024-2025, colleges likely haven’t made any decisions about what they plan to do.
But most Profile schools do have deeper pockets than schools that use the FAFSA only. They will be able to make a decent decision about how to handle disbursement of their own institutional money for families with multiples in college….once that change takes place.