We ran the NPC months ago and ran it again yesterday. The numbers were very different. Big increase in family contribution. Our numbers did not change. Same school.
Is this happening??
There formula may have changed, or you may have entered numbers incorrectly for one or both versions. Run them again carefully with the current formula. If you are sure about how the numbers were entered both times, then it truly is OK to contact the financial aid office and ask.
If you ran it months ago it might have been for the 2020-2021 academic year. I’d call the school and ask about it to be sure.
When did you run the NPC before. If it was before September, it’s very possible it was still set for students who started college fall 2020. These NPCs do get updated annually, and yes, financial aid policies do change sometimes from year to year.
As noted, you need to check the data you entered. Check to make sure you didn’t enter an extra zero, or misplaced a decimal point.
Have you done a FAFSA yet? Did you get your SAR from that? Does this college use the Profile?
We had the same issue last year with auto merit #s in the NPCs. D20 had 2 state schools’ NPCs change as late as the end of January this year, 2 weeks before financial letters were mailed. One FA letter listing merit was 6k/year lower than her acceptance letter. Both cases it was attributed to state budget cuts.