<p>I know I should ask this question of our son's FA office, but I wanted to hear first from folks here to get a sense of what is normal. We have been given a pretty good FA package, but there is a gap of about $7K. We have already been told that any outside scholarships we can wrangle (no luck there so far) will be used to reduce the gap and will only reduce the aid award after the gap is eliminated. So far so good.</p>
<p>My question is, if we can make some additional income this year, will this also be "counted against the gap" in terms of its impact on our FA award for the following year?</p>
<p>Example (these aren't the real numbers, but they're nice and round):</p>
<p>COA: $50K; total aid: $20K; EFC: $20K; gap: $10K</p>
<p>If we could come up with $10K additional income this year, would our aid for the following year be
(a) unaffected, because we have only made enough to fill the gap
(b) reduced, but not by as much as if there were no gap
(c) reduced by $10K, resulting in the same gap as before?</p>
<p>Any guesses, educated or otherwise? Thanks.</p>
<p>Nightchef, every school uses different methods and they do not necessarily use the same methodology year to year or even student to student. However, in all of the cases I have seen, each year starts afresh. The school will reassess your family’s need with the new data, including that new income figure, new asset numbers, etc. I’ve never known a school that worked towards closing any gap the next year.</p>
<p>Usually, the first year package is the most generous. As the student moves up in school, he is expected to provide more of his school cost. Grants tend to be replaced by larger loans and self help. So, usually, unless the student is really on top of the financial aid office during the year, the next year’s aid tends to gap more.</p>
<p>With my kids, and friends’ kids, I have not seen so much of what cptofthehouse has. Which is not to say it isn’t right, just that in my (limited) experience across private and public colleges the level of aid from the school stays fairly constant assuming income and assets stay pretty level and (in the case of some awards) the student maintains a certain GPA. This is always an important question to ask the FA office, though, so you know what to expect. The common exception, though, is for private schools to expect a student to earn a bit more each year through summer employment which they’re expected to contribute to their college costs.</p>
<p>However, I totally agree that in all likelihood your FA award for the following year will be recalibrated to account for the additional income. They don’t really look at is as, ‘that extra income was to fill the gap, so it doesn’t count.’ </p>
<p>Some people find that FAFSA allows for a bit of new ‘second income’ (stay-at-home mom returns to work part-time) and it doesn’t effect the formula. I’m not sure it’s true --at least it wasn’t in my case-- but others have some evidence of this and it may well be the case for some families.</p>
<p>That’s only the FAFSA formula though. If your student is at a school that uses more than just the FAFSA for determining aid, it could be a totally different deal.</p>
<p>If the school typically leaves a gap, I think you’ll likely find another gap the next year. As to how much the amount of gap could change for better or worse just depends so much on the particular school and its FA policies.</p>