<p>I received my financial aid rewards letter from Macalester College and it states:</p>
<p>"The most common reasons for changes to financial aid eligibility are siblings entering or leaving undergraduate study and significant changes in family income."</p>
<p>I have two siblings who will attend college after me so how will their enrollment affect the aid I'll get in the years ahead? Would I get more aid because of it?</p>
<p>When you have siblings in college at the same time the parent part of the FAFSA EFC is divided equally between the number of students. So if the parent generated part of the EFC is 9000 then with one in school it would be 9,000. with 2 in school each parent part of the EFC would be 4,500, with 3 in school each EFC would be 3,000. The part of the EFC generated by a student’s own income/assets stays with that student.</p>
<p>How much difference it would make to your financial aid really depends on the EFC (for instance a 3000 EFC would make you eligible for the Pell grant while a 9000 does not) and the schools own financial aid policies.</p>
<p>Schools that use CSS do not necessarily divide their own ‘EFC’ for institutional aid by the number of students.</p>
<p>My EFC is 0 so does that mean nothing changes?</p>
<p>It will totally depends whether or not you and your sibs attend schools that meet full need. Who knows when dealing with schools that don’t, it’s all about the individual colleges. If you’re all top students that go to schools that meet need, the EFC will come close to being split 3 ways. If you all go to colleges without good aid, it could make no difference.</p>
<p>
If your EFC is already 0 then it is likely nothing will change. The exception might be if you are at a school that uses CSS and there is other financial information they take into account for institutional aid that is not taken into account by FAFSA.</p>