One LAC told me they use 6% of home equity but capped at 1.5 your income.
Did you send the school the other offers? You can ask to meet with FA officer to go over how they determined your award.
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Just a note: the income capping is specific to each college. Some use no home equity, some use all of it, and some will cap the amount they assess at a percentage of income. Very difficult to compare apples to apples.
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Grants are not necessarily going to be equal, even among schools with a similar COA that meet need. Need is met with a package consisting of grants/scholarships, work study, loans and student summer earnings expectations. Different schools have different packaging philosophies. Some will meet need with no loans, some with loans that exceed the federal annual loan amounts, some include summer earnings expectations (which vary by school), etc. Does the aid package in question equal COA minus EFC minus summer earnings expectation (which this school says they include) minus grants/scholarships minus work study minus loans offered to the student (not Parent Plus)? If so, they met need, using their particular packaging philosophy.
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Does your daughter’s top school guarantee to meet full need for all accepted students? Does this college use home equity in a larger way than the other colleges? It seems this might be the case.
Are you self employed? Schools treat the self employed in different ways as well.
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Hamilton and Wesleyan both offer need-based need only and as such shouldn’t be calculating need differently for a male vs female.
It is interesting that the Welsh school has seemingly calculated an EFC of 4x Hamilton and Wesleyan, and 2x that of Lafayette, which is notoriously on the stingy side.
OP I would drop the Philly school in a nano second…did you talk to them about the $10K NPC difference? If they dropped their price $10K would it influence the final decision? Did you ask if they could provide any merit aid (or is part of their award already merit)?
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If your equity in your primary residence is fully tapped by the Welsh college…even at 5.6% of the value, that would add $15,400 to your family coats.
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This school doesn’t consider other institutions’ FA offers.
But, as pointed out, by @MMRose, so does Lafayette. Anyway, it’s something to ask the FA officer.
Something for you to consider…what if this top choice school does reconsider your aid amount for this coming academic year? Will you have to jump through the same or more hoops in subsequent college years?
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Yes, I’ve gathered that Lafayette isn’t excessively forthcoming with aid…and yet. Also, it’s not like the Welsh school is especially strapped for cash. I suppose my main question was indeed whether using a school’s own FA calculator’s results as part of an appeal was a reasonable tack. Worth a shot, it seems.
The best thing would be to schedule a meeting with FA office and have a copy of your NPC results and all your other offers. They can explain how they calculated your FA.
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Another thing to keep in mind is that starting in the 22/23 year, FAFSA isn’t going to recognize having 2 in college at the same time in the calculation. We will have 3 next year, and 2 the next 3 years, but expect less FA (none) junior and senior years.
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I did not know that. The news just keeps getting better. I’ll have to re-read my S’s offers but I thought they said those figures would be the roughly the same all four years.
Almost all colleges will give more money when more kids are simultaneously in college and less when there are fewer. That’s why they ask about that in FAFSA, CSS Profile, and NPCs.
New legislation has removed the increased aid provision for siblings in college from the FAFSA starting with academic year 23-24. I supposed CSS Profile colleges can still offer increased aid if they want to though? Probably best to ask.
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Also, one of my son’s colleges noted in his FA package what the increased cost would be once his older brother graduates, but only one did that. A nice courtesy, though, for the one(s) that tell you up front.
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Right, but all of the schools we are talking about here are Profile schools, so they don’t use FAFSA rules when calculating a family’s need. I think it’s likely many Profile schools will still give consideration for more than one kid in college at the same time, something certainly that’s reasonable to ask them.
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Agreed. And for the OP, since the two kids are twins, hopefully that won’t be an issue since they are Profile schools and presumably the twins will be in college for the same four years.
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It’s definitely a good question to ask.
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I’m very sorry that the aid isn’t what was expected. We had that problem w/ a school that my daughter EA’ed. It was shocking, but luckily she didn’t have her heart set on the school.
Before my daughter applied to the Welsh school, she went to a zoom meeting and they had a representative there promoting the school and answering questions. This was back in October of 2020. The girls were advised that if they wanted to go to the Welsh school and required aid, they should ED/ED2 because they have more resources for aid earlier on. They really pushed that idea hard and it sounds like it may have been true.
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Based on this, it sounds like the “Welsh school” does not meet full need for all students, and that OP’s daughter may have been gapped which could explain a discrepancy between the NPC result and the actual FA offer.
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