Child 1 started attending College 1 in 2014 and received $X of aid.
If Child 2 starts College 2 in 2016, I believe I will be eligible for “extra” aid because I’ll have two kids in college at the same time.
My question is: which college will grant the “extra” aid? Do they split it somehow? What if College 1 costs much more than College 2? Is my understanding of this way off?
Appreciate any guidance/advice/feedback!
who knows!
What schools are these? Most schools do not meet need and don’t have much aid to give beyond the small amounts of Fed aid.
Do both schools “meet need”?
Do both schools require CSS Profile (usually the schools that give the best aid do)
While the FAFSA EFC generally splits 50/50, that doesn’t mean anything to schools that don’t meet need. That is always shocking to parents who are “full pay” for one child, and think that they’ll get aid for two kids when EFC splits, but actually get nothing.
CSS Profile schools split 60/60, but even that can be confusing if the family is high income/high assets. Such a family may be told that they’re full-pay for both kids or all 3 kids if their income/assets are high enough.
Which schools are these?
It looks like URoch is school #1. It doesn’t promise to meet need. Did they “meet need” for you this year? …or are you full pay? Or did your child get merit there? You can ask them if they’ll give more aid when there are two in school.
Did you run the URoch NPC and put 2 in school to see what the results would be? (this isn’t perfectly accurate since the school may not be as generous to a returning student).
Start running NPCs at other schools that Child #2 may consider and put 2 in school and see what the results are.
If you find that URoch is not going to give you more aid once Child #2 starts school, and you suspect that you will have trouble paying for 2 in school, then you may need to find schools with large merit for Child #2. This may not seem fair to child #2, but pulling child #1 out of his current school is not a good choice either. This is a dilemma that many face when they didn’t realize that they won’t get enough aid for two in school.
You have to understand that “qualifying for more aid” does NOT mean getting more aid at MOST schools. Most schools “gap”.
Has something changes since UR published this…in April?
Yes, UR is College 1. I guess my post history makes that clear!
I was asking the question out of curiosity from a general point of view. But it sounds like the answer is “it depends”, like so many other aspects of college administration. I’d rather not get into more specifics about my particular case in a public forum and I doubt it will be of much value to other CC’ers anyway since the answer is probably different for everyone. I will play around with the NPCs and talk to the schools and find my specific answer that way. Thanks for the advice!
OP can always PM CC posters that are knowledgeable!
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Apr 2, 2015 - The University of Rochester is committed to meeting the full demonstrated need of all admitted students. We achieve this through the use of scholarships, grants, loans, and work opportunities.
[/QUOTE]
Oh good. I didn’t know that UR was now meeting need.
However the family needs to find out if they will 'have need" once two are in school. Simply having a second child start school does not mean there will be need.
They may just offer self help, as noted above.
It depends on the school. My daughter is attending a 100% meets full need school that uses the FAFSA EFC despite also being a profile school. I will have 2 in college for 3 years so our FAFSA EFC is split for 3 out of the 4 years. My kid attending the meets full need school gets FA for 3 years to make up the difference between the cost of the school and our EFC. Her sibling gets nothing- we will be full pay. Hope this makes sense.
For many Profile schools, the split is not 50/50 when two are in school. In many, if not most cases, each child pays 60% of what the EFC would be if only one were enrolled.
^
Yes, and the confusing part with CSS schools is that you can be told that you’re full pay ($65k) when you have one in school, BUT, that does NOT mean that the split will be 60/60 when the 2nd goes to school if the family income/assets are too high.
I think (not sure) some CSS schools are fixing this confusion, but not sure how they’re doing that.
A few years ago, there was a full-pay Cornell mom here on CC who assumed that she would pay 60/60 when Child #2 enrolled. However, she found out that they’d be full pay for BOTH. Why? She wondered. Why didn’t she get the 60/60 split. (They had a very good income, but really most of their financial health was in unprotected “retirement” stocks/investments). She was told that based on income/assets, Cornell had really determined their “ability to pay” at around $150k. Therefore, in Cornell’s mind, the family could afford to be full-pay for both kids. If Cornell had indicated that when they got their FA offer when Child #1 was applying, they may have chosen another route, but at that point, they felt they had no choice but to allow Child #2 to follow.
Best would be to try the net price calculators of both College 1 and College 2 with your “what if?” scenarios:
a. College 1 with just Child 1 there. (before Child 2 starts)
b. College 1 with Child 1 there and a second child in college.
c. College 2 with Child 2 there and a second child in college.
d. College 2 with just Child 2 there. (after Child 1 finishes)
Add the net prices from (b) and © above to get the yearly net price estimate for both schools during the time that both are in college.
Older daughter went to OOS private FAFSA-only university. Her financial aid was about as good as I expected, given the school and our circumstances. We paid $8,000 to $10,000 per year out of pocket and she finished school with the maximum loan amount, I think. Younger daughter started college two years later, at an OOS LAC that used CSS Profile. Older daughter’s aid didn’t seem to change based on us having two in college. But I think younger daughter’s was better during her first two years than it would have been if she had been the only family member in school those years.