Hello community DD has fallen in love with F&M. Only concern is the extremely large price tag. They do not offer merit money only need based. She was offered a very nice first year package however we currently have three in college which will only be two the following year and we also have our own business so we have vast changes in income year to year. This year was based upon Covid 2020 year. So my question is does anyone have experience with F&M’s financial aid and how much fluctuation is possible. Thank you for any additional input or help!
Well…starting in the 2023-2024 academic year (@kelsmom….is that correct), the FAFSA will no longer reduce the EFC for multiple kids in college. No decision yet on what Profile schools will do. Or how individual colleges will manage the awarding of institutional need based aid when multiple kids are in college at the same time.
Wow I didn’t know that! Good to know whe making decisions
@Mcckam809 this is a good question to ask college financial aid departments…especially since you have multiple kids in college at the same time.
A thought. Are you paying anything out of pocket for the oldest kid who will be graduating first? If so, those monies can be diverted to the newest college admit.
And lastly, any chance any of your kids have merit aid? That is not affected by family income variations OR numbers of kids in college.
So … I saw the proposed draft 2023-24 FAFSA, which asks several questions that were not supposed to be asked effective 23-24. Number in college is still there, as is money paid on behalf of the student. The article said that the Department of Education was not able to make all of the changes on time (don’t get me started … schools have to do whatever ED requires, even if ED backdates the regulations). It didn’t make any mention of whether that information would be collected but not used in the formula. I honestly don’t know if they are putting off some of the regulations for a subsequent year. Because I am not “in the biz” anymore, I don’t have a way to find out. I suggest asking the school’s financial aid office.
1 Like
F&M is a CSS Profile School. Changes to FAFSA are not a material issue.
@OhBennyHavensOh The changes to the FAFSA so far have all be adopted by CSS Profile schools in the past. At this point, we don’t have any idea what the Profile schools will do WRT multiple siblings in college at the same time.
But as I have said…Profile Schools can award their institutional aid any way they choose to.
And some profile schools DO include things like the Pell Grant and SEOG in their need based awards…in addition to their own need based monies. If a student is no longer eligible for a federally funded grant, will these schools make up that amount? No one knows…