<p>right now my sister is finishing her 2nd year of college.</p>
<p>my parent contribution is $8,600. i've got a $33,500 grant, currently.</p>
<p>my sister's college expenses are ~$10,000/yr but she is getting $8,000 merit aid</p>
<p>what is going to happen when she graduates? =/ im not sure if i should go to cornell or uva, where the aid is not initially as good as cornell's but i wont be as screwed if they take everything away.
thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t know what the exact calculation is, but your EFC will go up once your sister finishes college…provided your family’s income and assets remain about the same.</p>
<p>When my brother dropped out of college, my EFC went up approximately $2,000, but I was able to get a Stafford loan to cover that increase.</p>
<p>Are you in-state at UVa?</p>
<p>nope, i live in maryland.</p>
<p>$2,000? i would be fine with that- i’m just hoping its not $18,000 (the published cost of attendance for my sister’s college)</p>
<p>Well…like I said, I don’t know the exact calculation…so it could be more or less. The EFC won’t increase the full amount of the cost of attendance at your sister’s school. It will be based on income and assets and the fact that there is now only one child in college.</p>
<p>Just make sure your parents don’t win the lottery any time soon ;)</p>
<p>I’m in the opposite situation. Cornell’s a really good deal for me right now, but my brother goes to school when I’m a senior so that’ll get us even more money. My parents also said something about how if your parents are over 55 (one, both, idk) that you get an even further discount to your EFC. Is this true?</p>
<p>My understanding of EFC, at least from FAFSA, is that your EFC is split between the kids you have in college. So, if FAFSA says you have an EFC of $9000 and you have one in college, then it is $9,000 at that one college. If you have 2, then it would be $4,500 at each and so on.</p>
<p>Cornell doesn’t use the EFC as calculated by the FAFSA so it may not apply the same way for Cornell. However, for something so important, your best bet is to call and speak with a counselor and specifically ask. They should be able to tell you exactly how much you will get. When I was there for Cornell Days and had a meeting with one of them, they were at their computer plugging different numbers in and giving me different scenarios back based on what they plugged in.</p>