<p>How much do colleges normally give for financial aid if you have siblings that also attend college? </p>
<p>i will be attending a private university next year, and i probably wont get any financial aid. so assuming i pay around 40-45k a year, how much should i expect to pay if i have a younger sibling who also attends a college next year if they go to a 40-45k school, or if they go to a 20k school?</p>
<p>If I understand the formula correctly your EFC will be cut in half. For instance if your EFC is $80,000 both this year and next you would be expected to pay $40,000 for each of you next year. Basically, divide the EFC by the number of kids in college.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>how much should i expect to pay if i have a younger sibling who also attends a college next year>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>This question is impossible to answer without knowing a lot of things...cost of attendance at your colleges, EFC now (if it's 80K, you will probably be paying the full cost even with a second sib in college), and whether the colleges you all are attending meet full need. If the schools do not meet full need, you may not see much of an increase in your aid at all. DS was our only kid in college for three years. When younger sister joined him as a college student, he receive an additional $500 in grant aid. His school does not meet full need...and frankly, what motivation would they have to increase his aid? It's not like he was going to transfer elsewhere for his senior year. As noted above, the EFC for each kid is about that fraction (two kids in college...1/2, three in college 1/3) but that does not necessarily translate into increased aid.</p>
<p>The formula cuts the parental contribution to the EFC in half when two kids are in college. But the student contribution remains, and might be different for the two kids, depending on their assets (mainly) and their income. So while the family EFC often gets cut in about half, if the students have significant differences in income or assets, that rule of thumb won't apply.</p>
<p>Take a case where the second child has a 40K savings account. In the previous year, this wasn't reported in FAFSA. Now it is, and it will result in a contribution to the EFC of 8K from that student's assets, regardless of any decrease in EFC contribution from the parents.</p>