Disadvantage of kid #1

vballmom
Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:15:48 +0000

I have two in college, a year apart. S1 is full pay at a public, in-state. S2 is at a private that doesn’t say they meet full need, but they’ve been very generous. He has a small grant on top of his merit aid. The college is meeting S2’s EFC which is 50% of our total family EFC.

When S2 was considering this private, I’ll called the FA office and asked (nicely) for them to predict if the grant would go away once S1 graduates and our per-child EFC effectively doubles. Their response was that unless anything else changes with our situation, the grant would most likely remain the same.

Last year I sold my house and had the proceeds sitting in the bank when I filed FAFSA in Feb 2012. This brought my son’s EFC up well beyond the COA. He still got his grant, although slightly reduced from last year.

Next year when S1 graduates, I won’t be surprised if the grant goes away. However based on how generous S2’s college has been in the past, I think there’s a chance that they’ll award the grant for one last year.

Moral of the story: it really depends on the college.