<p>I have not heard of a single case where a college has increased financial aid to a student after their first year.</p>
<p>I’ll be your counterexample. It was a lot of trouble for my parents, and they’re also very good at being pushy and getting what they want.</p>
<p>You do have little leverage when negotiating with them. You can’t exactly threaten to go somewhere else and have much credibility.</p>
<p>I have heard examples of increases - when there is a significant change in family income or another child in the family goes off to college. Barring that - no.</p>
<p>The first change to the negative side will be the increase in the Stafford loan from 2650 to 3500 (not sure of the exact numbers.) Another change might be an increase in work study money thinking that as a 2nd year student they could handle more hours. Those two thing alone could decrease the grant portion by about 1500 dollars. Adding a another child attending college will probably be the only reason to get an increase in aid. Unfortunately, it’s usually a wash because now you are paying for 2!</p>
<p>what if your parents get divorced</p>
<p>^that is my case (divorce) but again, I think that’s not what the OP meant.</p>
<p>We can provide that example. My eldest is on half-scholarship at Hillsdale, but she wasn’t offered any music money. Her orchestra director always swam during one of her lifeguard shifts and he mentioned he thought she was working an awful lot. She explained that her parents weren’t able to send her ANY money. He came back with a scholarship the next week. He doubled that money the next semester. Her sophomore year, he doubled that money again and just last month, he gave her more money for her senior year, now that she is Concert Mistress. He told she is doing an outstanding job. The college also gave her the job conducting a small youth orchestra at their academy, plus working with the high school’s string quartet, plus some playing gigs with a professional orchestra. She’s had the opportunity to play for extra convocations, etc.–all things under the college’s purview. I’m sure a small private college has much more leeway in this, but it’s happened for our family…</p>
<p>Ours went up slightly. $800 for music lessons. Roughly $1,600 for everything else. (oh, her half tuition scholarship went up as tuition went up.)</p>
<p>So they don’t recalculate the EFC every year? I thought as we spent down our S’s savings (not to mention our own) we might drop down into FA range.</p>
<p>Yes, they do recalculate EFC each year. We had financial aid go up a little due to that. We also had financial aid go up a bit when our son did overseas study, because it cost more. And then when we made more money, of course, aid went down, since it was all need-based.</p>
<p>I am thinking my financial aid will go up because not only do we have one more person in the house, but the income decreased about 900 percent compared to last year… (And yes, 900% is no mistake)</p>
<p>My need-based aid went up Junior year. Mind you, however, that this was after a decrease Sophomore year and our financial situation did change.</p>
<p>in terms of institutional grants, well at my school, they’ve told me that the institutional grant you get the first year is the same institional grant amount you’ll get througout your 4 years.</p>
<p>my pell grant increased by 1000 this school year.</p>
<p>OK I’ll bite. How can income decrease 900%? If income goes to 0 that’s 100% decrease.</p>
<p>Each year’s financial aid award is based on need in that given year. Circumstances can change in a family that will be reflected on FAFSA. Examples, parent loses job, divorce, death, siblings in college, major shift in income, etc. </p>
<p>My D who is a soph at Brown had the grant portion of her FA shoot up a LOT this year because we also now have another child in college who is a freshman. I’m talking a very significant increase. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Mine increased ~150%. I’m paying for college with scholarships and what little my parents managed to save for me over the years–so I didn’t accept any of the loans my school offered for 2005-2006. I suspect that as the saved money continues to decrease, the financial aid packages will keep on increasing.</p>
<p>sorry, 90%</p>
<p>If the college meets 100% need via grants & scholarships, then the package will generally go up, even if income remains the same, to compensate for tuition increases. Obviously, if income fluctuates, the EFC will also change. However, in subsequent years the student will generally be expected to take on a larger burden of loans and work study. Both LACs that my kids chose specifically limit the total amount of loans for the 4 years, and provided that info in writing at the outset. </p>
<p>If need is calculated from assets held in the student’s name, the EFC will go down - and aid increase - as the student spends down his assets. The same holds true for parental assets being spent down, but the percentage of assets that goes into the EFC calculation is smaller, so that has a less significant effect (e.g., for every $100 you spend, your EFC goes down by about $5 - at that rate of return it often makes more sense for the parents to borrow than to significantly reduce assets).</p>
<p>I had my financial aid increased after my freshman year, but with some hefty mitigating circumstances (my dad had major surgery and got made redundant). I also had to get my adviser to badger the financial aid dept as well as sending letters and bothering them in person several times.</p>
<p>I hope we break the rule. Just got our SAR which dropped 83% (meaning thousands). I knew there was something wrong last year! Now we are just waiting for the colleges FA package.</p>