<p>Will I get more financial aid if my twin brother is attending college the same years I do?</p>
<p>wondering the same thing.</p>
<p>With FAFSA when you submit your financial information it comes up with an EFC (expected family contribution) which is made up of a parent EFC based on parents income and assets and a student portion based on the students income and assets. If there are 2 students in college at the same time the parent portion of the EFC is divided between the students. So if you have a parent EFC of 6000 and you, the student, have an EFC of 1000 the EFC without a sibling in school at the same time would be 7000. With a sibling in school the parent EFC would be divided between you and your sibling (3000 each) but the student portion would remain unchanged (1000) giving a total EFC of 4000. Financial aid is based on the difference between the EFC and the COA (cost of attendance) of the college.</p>
<p>So it is possible you may get more financial aid depending on your family and student income and assets. My suggestion would be to run some numbers through an EFC calculator like the one on finaid.org - it gives a pretty accurate idea of your EFC (providing the numbers input are accurate).</p>
<p>Finaid also contains a lot of very useful information about financial aid, loans, grants etc.</p>
<p>You will definitely qualify for more aid. Whether you get it depends on the policy and practices of the school you attend. Yes if it is a 100% need school and if your parents also have to pay for your brother (some colleges ask for verification of the COA from the sibling's school, so if your brother got a full ride scholarship somewhere or was going to to community college, it wouldn't necessarily mean more money for you, even though the FAFSA EFC would be lower)</p>
<p>In my experience, more money! My twin girls applied to schools this year, and for Financial aid, based on both attending. One is going on a Rotary exchange and we wanted schools and financial aid figured out before she left. So we applied for two, and later, amended it to one. The FAFSA EFC just about doubled with one in school, and we are paying thousands extra in tuition for that one year. Now the two that the one staying home were considering are LAC known for good aid, so we had very nice finan. aid packages to begin with, with a good amount of merit aid included. Were she going to our competitive state universities, it would have just adjusted the loan packages. </p>
<p>This turns out to be a very expensive exchange for the one, as we'll face higher costs after her sister graduates as well. I knew this at the outset when the was being discussed, but was not listened to...Those Rotary exchanges are priceless in other ways.</p>
<p>When I figured it out with my twins going, our EFC was cut almost in half, vs now with just their brother. But, I wondered, if my son goes to grad school right out of college, is he still considered "in school" or does the EFC just deal with the first 4 years?</p>
<p>Most colleges will not consider a sibling in grad school to be a factor reducing financial aid, as the older sibling will then be independent for FAFSA purposes--- but you might be able to get some adjustments/consideration from the financial aid office.</p>