Can a college ask another college how much financial aid someone’s sibling receives?
No. But they can ask the family
@sybbie719 can elaborate….but some colleges DO consider the amount a sibling is paying when need based aid is determined. IOW, of the sibling is on a full ride…then a small number of colleges will consider that.
I believe is correct.
But the college doesn’t ask the other COLLEGE. The college asks the family to (honestly) provide this information. Another college won’t release this to anyone else.
A college can ask how much the family is paying for the sibling to attend college to determine the strength of the family’s finances when it comes to paying for college.
@Thumper makes a great point, if you have 2 in college and kid 1 has a full athletic, merit or other scholarship, the family is only paying the misc. expenses for kid one. One student could be attending CC in a state that provides free community college (you have 2 in college but you are not paying the full cost of attendance for 2 in college).
I have seen colleges ask for the financial aid award letter from the other school. The award letter has the cost of attendance and the net price that the parent is paying.
The net-net is that schools can ask for anything they want when it comes to disburing their own institutional funds as long as they are not discriminating.
The EFC formula changes for 2023-24 to remove the break that parents get for having more than one child in college. I suspect that some of the private schools that provide excellent need based aid may choose to consider whether there is more than one in school, but I am sure they will also want to know how much the family is actually paying for the other student/s. Schools are not allowed to discuss a student’s financial aid with anyone else, so it’s always incumbent on the family to answer honestly if asked.
1 Like
My experience was that FAFSA only schools only asked if there was a sibling in school and did not ask the amount. One school did ask the name of the school.
In our case, the second child was on (just about) a full ride between athletic and merit aid, but the school didn’t ask the amount I paid. I think a CSS school may ask the specifics.
One of our (CSS) schools just asked how much we paid for the sibling.