Our oldest is working through the common dilemma of deciding between a sizable price tag for his top choice school (GA Tech), and some great offers (including full tuition at one) at some “less prestigious” engineering schools. Our second child is 2 years out from college herself, and we’ve been told by numerous people that once we have 2 in college, it will DRASTICALLY affect the numbers. The idea of paying this hefty price tag for 2 years instead of 4 years is a variable we started including in our family discussions, however the Net Price Calculator on GT’s website does NOT indicate a major savings when inputting the “2 kids in college” scenario. Can anyone speak from experience on this topic?
The FAFSA EFC will be halved with 2 in college.
But depending on the school (is GA tech OOS for you?), there might not be any more aid from the school.
@AeroEngParent Thanks for asking this question! We are in the same boat as my oldest is finalizing his decision now and my second one will be 3 years behind. ?
How about schools that use the CSS profile? I’ve heard that this doesn’t work as the FAFSA dies and nay depend on the school?
I am approaching the same scenario here. One is going in September and one two years out. I am hedging my bets and approaching all with caution. Nothing is guaranteed in life. We are not killing ourselves with the first child and will stay in the budget we planned. for the second child I am trying to focus on other sources of funding (athletics etc) and looking at schools that might meet more of our need to keep the cost again, within the budget we planned.
And I don’t believe that public schools take the second child into account (But I could be wrong). I was told by the Excelsior scholarship people here in NY that that isnt a consideration when applying for that particular source of funding.
I’m speaking from experience!
Our first kiddo went to an expensive private university. As a freshman, sophomore and junior, our EFC exceeded the cost of attendance.
His sister was a college freshman his senior college year. He got $250 more added to a merit award he received… but not a nickel of need based aid. At that point, his FAFSA EFC was about 1/2 the cost of attendance (EFC was $22,000 on a cost of attendance of nearly $50,000…he graduated in 2007…that college now costs $70,000 plus a year).
Oh…and his sister…got no need based aid at a similarly priced college.
Really…the EFC isn’t as important as the financial aid awarding policies of the colleges.
If the colleges don’t guaranteed to meet full need for all…then you just might not get a nickel more in need based aid, even with a much lower EFC in subsequent years.
We have two in college for last 3 years. Both go to the same state school. Yep, their EFCs were basically cut in half. This helped us out just a small bit; my daughter was able to take out subsidized loans.
This school - like many public schools - doesn’t give grant aid. So their EFCs really didn’t matter much as they were above federal pell levels, and there was no grant aid to receive.
you need to look to see if the schools yours kids are interested in give Grant/Need Aid. Those are the school where your EFC matters.
I think this is a very difficult scenario to forecast out 2-3 years. Income growth, tuition increases, financial aid rules, and other factors may throw off the calculations. That was our experience with two in college overlapping by two years even though we asked the FA offices to give us projections.
One CSS school and one FAFSA only. Both meeting full demonstrated need. Our “family contribution” did not get divided equally between the schools once the 2nd child started. It was more like 3/4 to each school, so our overall out-of-pocket costs increased substantially. And did not go down much once we were back to only one in college.
So do your due diligence but be prepared for surprises.
This needs its own comment…and I’m sure others will chime in.
Engineering programs that have ABET accreditation will all get your kid to a point where he can be a practicing engineer.
So…those other “less prestigious” engineering programs that are affordable are likely just fine.
The reason there is NO difference when you enter two kids in college in the GT net price calculator is…GT does not guarantee to meet full need for all.
What are the other “free” options. Folks here can comment on the schools…prices,etc.
Engineering curriculum at ABET accredited schools is pretty standard stuff.
I am guessing the school offering full tuition is also offering other perks like Honors, improved access to research opportunities, etc. There’s an advantage to being a top performer in a “lesser” school than one of the crowd in a “higher” school
Forgot to add, in some schools the only difference the lower EFC will get you is access to subsidiz ed student loans
Yes, GT is oos for us.
Georgia Tech is a public school. Unless your having a second child in school will make you Pell eligible or eligible for subsidized loans vs unsub loans, your have 2 in school as with one OOS at GT will have no bearing on financial aid. If you are receiving merit aid, you will not receive additional aid because you have another child in school.
The goal of a public school is to have an affordable option for their taxpayer based because public schools are receive funding from the state taxpayers.
At public schools most students who are receiving aid are receiving aid in the following categories:
Federal Aid (based on the FAFSA)
State aid - in this case HOPE/Zell Miller state scholarships
Merit aid
Athletic scholarships
There is really no need based aid to give.
Thanks to all for your responses. Very helpful. GT being a public school and not having that “meet your need” component is clearly the key difference. Our son also applied to MIT so that is likely where the advice I mentioned initially stemmed from. Unfortunately that’s the one school that didn’t accept him.
Thumpert, the other schools still under strong consideration are Florida Tech (also known as FIT) and UF. FIT is really his 2nd choice right now. It kills me because UF is such a good school with a strong engineering program, but the fact they don’t offer a “true” Aerospace Eng. major (it’s a combined Aero/Mechanical), along with with my son feeling MUCH more comfortable at FIT with respect to cultural fit (he’s your stereotypical introverted math/science wiz), UF is the school he’s least interested in. Full Bright Futures plus an additional 2k/year scholarships for the Honors Program & Honors Research scholarship too, but alas…
I would love to know people’s thoughts on Florida Tech if anyone has them. I started one other thread here a couple of days ago, asking how people in the industry view an FT degree when hiring, but no responses. I didn’t start off with a very high opinion of FT but I have been impressed along the way…they seem to have come a long way. And for AE I think they’re a very good option (particularly offering full tuition), but I know how highly regarded GT is for AE (and within NASA specifically), so we’re doing our due diligence.
Those Florida schools would be fine.
@CourtneyThurston please give your opinion and discuss what no debt can do to open doors for you.
The combined Aero/Mechanical is a very nice hedge against the hugely cyclical hiring in the Aerospace industry.
Don’t believe me? Ask the cohort of kids who graduated mid-1990’s when aerospace hiring dried up, or in 2001, or 2009.
The industry doesn’t go away during periods of compression- but it sure cuts back on new hires (and aggressively moves to encourage 62 year old aero engineers to take early retirement). You just don’t know what the state of play is going to be when your son graduates… a solid ME can get hired anywhere (automotive, energy, pharma, consumer products, consumer durables, robotics and medical devices). Aero is more specialized.
So to me- the lack of a specific aero program at UF is a feature, not a bug.
OH NO! That’s not right! 
UF has a large Aerospace program and offers a BS in Aerospace Engineering/u. They award about 85 to 90 BS in Aero, each year. They have an OPTION for students to do a dual degree in ME and AE. Students can take one extra year (total of 5 years) to earn both degrees.
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/current/undergraduate/dual-me-ae-degrees
They also offer a “combined” Bachelor’s/Master’s degree option, where the student can earn their BS and MS in 5 years.
https://catalog.ufl.edu/UGRD/colleges-schools/UGENG/ARO_BSAE/
https://www.eng.ufl.edu/students/resources/undergraduate-student-handbook/combined-degree/
I think I heard once that about 10% of AE’s earn dual degrees in AE/ME. However, if you have the grades, I would recommend the combined degree, as the MS will likely prove more useful, in the long run, than two BS degrees.
Either way, you don’t have to decide on the dual or combine options until your junior year.
Bonus info!
UF publishes it’s Graduation Survey results. Students have to fill it out as part of graduation. You can search by major, select Aero, and see the results.Lots of interesting data.
https://career.ufl.edu/student-outcomes/
By the way, my son was also accepted to GT, and at the time we had two in college. I was surprised when they did offer a nice amount of grant $ ( had expected no aid, other than loans). However, I don’t know if GT would have adjusted the aid in future years, if our family had an additional student attend college.
@twoinanddone do you have some knowledge about Florida Tech and engineering to share?
@Gator88NE …incredible! Not only did the 3 of us walk out of our visit feeling we heard the same thing about the “dual-only” degree, I would swear I read the same on UF’s website as well. Thank you for this clarification.
I guess as a follow-up, how does your son like the program thus far? Does he feel there are many opportunities for research and internships/co-ops? Florida Tech’s proximity and relationships with NASA, the emphasis on hands-on work/research, and the ability get into AE work as early as freshman year are all part of the allure for FT. How does UF compare?
I think the savings in having multiples in college is often overstated. That’s because the parental FAFSA EFC is halved. That’s well and good, but I don’t know any schools that guarantee to meet need as defined by the FAFSA EFC. So you have to venture carefully into this situation.
Where it can work, and I can give you an example that I personally know happened, is when you have two kids in a school that will halve or otherswise substantially reduce what you have to pay per student when you have multiples in college, and they commit to doing this. My neighbor’s oldest daughter was at Colgate who gave her a small aid package when she was the first of the kids to go to college. The following year, her sister joined her at Colgate, and the cost was drastically reduced (though not halved) per child. But the older student was expected to cover more of her costs as a sophomore than the new college student. But basically, for a little more than the cost of one Colgate cost, they had two students there for the next 3 years.
The picture was further complicated by the fact that the second daughter was a twin. Her twin brother went to UColorado OOS. That situation really upped the financial aid at Colgate because the parental FAFSA EFC was cut into thirds. But it still didn’t bring the family into PELL eligibility, and so it came down the DIrect Loans were all interest free for the kids while they were in college. Those loans and a bit of work study was all UCol gave the young man. UCOl does not guarantee to meet need, and doesn’t try to do so. They gap, especially for out of state students. THough Colgate did ( and I believe still does) guarantee to meet need, it’s need as they define it, not defined by FAFSA EFC.
But having the two girls at the same school that does have a guarantee to meet need policy, they saved a lot of money having the three in school at the same time over having them staggered over more years. They were also fortunate in that Colgate was a school that extended their “meet all need” policy over all 4 years including additional kids being in college. That’s not always the case. A school that might say they guarantee to meet need, may only do so if circumstances stay the same. They may guarantee not to decrease the initial aid package but make no commitments in meeting need as it arises. in future years, other than possibly income variation.
If you have other kids coming down the college pike that will be in school the same time as the first one, this is something to discuss with the financial aid office and request a letter from the director that explains their policy on multiple siblings in college at the same time. That way you won’t get a nasty surprise when that second kid is heading off to college while the first is still in school. FInd out what the financial aid policy is at that first school.