Son #2 will start college when D#1 starts her masters. (looking at architecture). For EFC/fafsa purposes will this mean 2 kids in college at the same time? does it matter if she’s grad school or not? thanks for your thoughts.
It depends on the school. You are lucky if the undergrad school will count the grad school student as in college.
Yes, you will need to ask kid 2’s college about what they count. Some count grad school sibs (as long as they remain your dependents and members of your household) and some do NOT.
It depends on the school. The school my daughter will be attending will count grad school as having two kids in college as long as we provide at least 50% of her support ( and that includes clothing, groceries we may bring to her, health insurance, etc) but other schools will not. That was an important factor in our decision and is one reason why some schools were dropped.
Boy, I’d hate to seriously constrain the choices for kid #2 based on funding a fifth year for kid #1. Nice if it works, but there are a lot of colleges that won’t consider a sibling in grad school as a second student in college.
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The school my daughter will be attending will count grad school as having two kids in college as long as we provide at least 50% of her support ( and that includes clothing, groceries we may bring to her, health insurance, etc)
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It can be hard to provide 51% of a grad student’s support unless you’re also paying for a good bit of the grad school’s cost.
Support is not just room, board, clothing, etc. It’s the whole 9 yards. So, if a grad student is attending a university that costs $50k-60k plus other various costs (car, insurance, etc), then the family would have to be paying more than half of ALL that for the child to count at schools that will count a grad student.
Since many grad students are either being funded by the school or the grad student is taking out loans, it can be hard for a parent to claim that 50% support.
Our younger kid’s undergrad school counted her older sib in grad school. We were paying all of his living expenses, health insurance, and part of his tuition. Less than half of his annual expenses were covered by his grad school stipend. We also had to send in the form verifying his full time enrollment
It really depends on the college…you need to call and ask.
The school that my daughter ( current HS senior) will be attending in the fall told me that when her sibling is in grad school then she will be counted as a college student as long as she is in school at least half time. We will be paying 100% from her 529 money for year 1, with some loan required for year 2- however I was told that even if she uses a grad school loan she will still be counted as a college student. Thumper is right that it depends on the school. My daughter will most likely be commuting from home to grad school, which means we will be providing room, board, and insurance.