<p>I have a hypothetical situation. The question applies to CSS schools that I understand do whatever they want to do and the answer will vary from school to school... however... is there a general answer?</p>
<p>(for the purpose of this question, there will be no change in assets, just income)</p>
<p>3 scenarios: </p>
<p>year 1 50k
year 2 100k</p>
<p>year 1 100k
year 2 50k</p>
<p>year 1 same income as
year 2</p>
<p>Will the student receive overall more FA in one of these scenarios over the other? </p>
<p>Will the school raise/drop FA typically only X percent regardless of change in income?</p>
<p>If a student received "preferred packaging" as an incoming freshman, will that possibly have some impact on year 2 FA? Do they have to live up to expectations or has the school stopped noticing (not referring to athletes)?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Most school will keep financial aid in proportion to changes on the PROFILE year to year, with some decrease each year as they expect the student to take on more of the cost. There is a loss of preferential packaging when the income goes way up since the aid part of the package has to be based on aid, and that preferential part is often a generous interpretation of as situation. If a college is giving a student aid that is solely from their own coffers, they can do as they please in terms of merit/aid and some offices just mix and match the two. </p>
<p>For eligibility for Stafford subsidies or SEOG or Perkins or PELL, those disappear as need does. At the levels you are showing, PELL is not in the picture, but for some kids whose packages are a mosaic of everything, when the economic picture changes, say a parent remarries, the aid can go from plenty to zip.</p>
<p>This happened to a family I know. DIsaster. SOmething that should have been taken into account. NCP remarried someone with enough income to turn the financial aid around completely but the person was not about to contribute commensurate amount towards the college costs.</p>