FAFSA questions

Although we have had two kids in college already, we have not yet filled out a FAFSA because our EFC on the FAFSA 4-caster was too high. Both of our older girls went to state schools and they both got scholarships that covered the full cost of tuition and a $2000/year stipend to help with room and board.

Our youngest will be starting college next year, but wants to go to school in NYC. According to the FAFSA 4-caster, our EFC is $35,000. Would that amount be split between our two kids? Or is that the EFC amount for each of them?

The first year our youngest will be in college will be our middle daughter’s last year as an undergrad, but our middle daughter is continuing in school to get her master’s degree (speech therapy requires an MS degree) and is switching to the fast-track-to-masters program for her senior year. I don’t know if she would count as a sibling in college once she got to the graduate school portion of her combined degree.

Any information you can give me would be helpful. We will definitely be filling out FAFSA for next year.

When you fill out the FAFSA you will be asked how many children are in college. If you have 2 in college and put down the number 2, fafsa will give you the correct EFC for that child. If you put down 1 student in college you will get a higher EFC. Each child requires his/her own FAFSA.

Some colleges will count grad school as two in college. My daughter’s does ( it is a school that meets full need). FAFSA allows you to include grad school as having 2 in college as long as the parents are providing at least 50% support. My older daughter will be living at home and commuting to grad school, and we will be providing 100% support- therefore we can include her as 2 in college.

You could still fill out a FAFSA for this year, the older girl could take out federal student loans (unsubsidized or subsidized if she qualifies for them) and take out loans next year (last undergrad year) as well and save them for master’s program if needed.

Also are you sure you don’t qualify for state grant (probably too late now)?

Our EFC is too high to qualify for Pell, but we qualified for a subsidized loan and a state grant.

You will have two in college next year, the grad loans for master program will have higher interest rates than undergrad loans. So investigate all options. Also sounds like the third child’s school costs significantly more. Hopefully that will be affordable for all 4 years so s/he doesn’t have to transfer out.

Do the state schools the older siblings attended also offer the program this child wants? Would s/he also qualify for scholarships there?

The EFC you get from a calculator is for each child I think, they take into account how many students are in school. I’m not sure if the older sister is considered in school for the master program, hopefully someone else can chime in concerning that.

If you input correctly, it will be est. EFC for one of your dependent students.

Do you know if any college allows you to count a sibling in graduate program when calculating EFC?

@tganns different colleges have differing policies on “counting” a grad school sibling. You would need to contact each college to ask them.