As we evaluate admissions and aid for the first, I have twins to follow in two years. Trying to determine the likelihood that the first will get more aid. Have run the numbers with the two in school and a change in assets assuming that we have used it for tuition. It appears tjat the number will change but has that been the experience of others?
It depends on the school that your first child attends. Did you use the NPC (when you ran the numbers) for the schools that your first child is interested in… and add that there will be two siblings in school at the same time?
If your first child attends a ‘meet need’ school they’ll take it into account. If the college doesn’t meet need then they may or may not.
It is a very legitimate question that you can ask the financial aid administrator at the schools that have admitted your first child. So I think you should do exactly that.
Here is what I did – I wrote out a list of my questions about financial aid, and then sent an email to the financial aid department asking if we could schedule a time do discuss my questions, and then listed what they were. I didn’t have to wait for an email response --I received a phone call from one of the financial aid directors the following morning. She explained their policies very clearly – obviously couldn’t give me dollar figures, but definitely could tell me in general terms how the award would be impacted by the sibling’s enrollment.
Usually for a need-based award the school does have clear internal policies, but they may vary and could also depend on actual COA and out-of-pocket for the siblings.
It is much better if you get the information directly from the school that your child will be attending rather than the experiences of others. The fact that my daughter’s private college increased her grant by roughly the same amount as the full tuition* for my son’s public in-state school won’t tell you anything about what some other school may do in your situation. (I don’t think that school #1 would have subsidized full tuition at school #2 except for the private/public discrepency - it wasn’t a huge amount of money, obviously).
You should also consider what happens to your aid when the first graduates and you still have 2 in. A couple of years ago, a friend allowed her son to attend an expensive private. His sister was a senior at the time so the family got solid aid based on 2 kids in college. Before her son enrolled as a freshman, my friend asked the FA rep several times what would happen to her son’s aid in year 2 after his sister graduated. She didn’t want him to attend a school, fall in love with it, and be forced to transfer because his aid package would be dramatically different in year 2. She was assured it would be there come sophomore year. Well, the second year came, and the aid was dramatically reduced. My friend managed to get some of the aid back, but not what was promised. Their son was doing so well that they didn’t want to remove him, but they are now saddled with a bunch of unexpected debt.
As others have said, there are a lot of variables, including the cost, how much aid you’re getting now and your income. We got a little grant aid for #1 when #2 entered college, but the rest of her “aid” was part of her student loan changed from non-subsidized to subsidized. She also got work study, except that there were no jobs for her when she got to campus.
#2 is at a State school, so we aren’t anticipating any additional aid for him when #3 starts in the Fall.
We have twins who are juniors in colleges and a D18. We’ve had good luck with FA for the twins and D18 has had decent packages from her schools. We’re anticipating that will change once the older girls graduate, but then we won’t have their expenses either.
Also, one twin got a position as an RA from sophomore year on and that has been a huge help with her room and board. She doesn’t get paid otherwise so we give her spending money. The other twin works at school and we usually don’t need to supplement that.