My D18 is receiving a merit scholarship that covers tuition. I confirmed the college doesn’t require her to do a FAFSA to keep receiving the merit scholarship, so we did not do one this year.
Next year, we will have to do a FAFSA for her sister, D20, to be eligible for scholarships and FA when she applies to colleges.
Will we have to complete a FAFSA for D18 in order for D20’s EFC to be cut in half, or can we just do D20’s FAFSA and enter two children in college?
when your younger daughter applies for need based aid using the FAFSA, she will indicate two in college if that is the case.
The older daughter does not have to complete a FAFSA unless you want to do this for consideration of need based aid, or to take the Direct Loan.
Might you qualify for state aid with two in college?
D18 might qualify for a subsidized loan or federal work study if she files a FAFSA.
had something very similar in our family; 1 kid filed FAFSA, 1 didn’t when both were in college. Never had an issue.
You don’t have to file the fAFSA for the older one, but it is very easy to do if you want to. When one child completes the FAFSA, it will ask “Do your parents have another child they wish to file for?” and then you click yes, enter that child’s info, and all the parent info is transferred. Easy.
Thanks @thumper1. If everything continues to go as well as it’s going now, D18 will be able to avoid all loans and we will never need to do another FAFSA for her.
@mommdc I’m not sure what the limits are for a state grants. My oldest went OOS so didn’t qualify on that basis and D18 had her scholarship so it wasn’t an issue for us before.
I called the FA office of two colleges that D20 is considering and one of them does offer some institutional need based grants, so I want to make sure I’m doing the FAFSAs right. She will also most probably need to take loans, unless she goes to Rutgers Camden with Bridging the Gap, lives at home, or some miracle happens. A subsidized loan would help.
@bgbg4us Thanks! I’m glad to hear it works.
We have been unbelievably fortunate with D18, but D20 is a very different kind of kid. I also have a D23 coming up next! I have to make sure I have the multi kid FAFSA thing down because I’m going to be doing it for awhile.
@twoinanddone Thanks for the info!
Also, the FAFSA doesn’t ask how much you are paying (if anything) for the other students. I didn’t pay anything for one kid but the other got full credit for having a sibling in college. The only requirement is that they are in a school that has the government loan program, so no credit for having a sibling at a service academy or at a non-qualified program.
@twoinanddone Wow! That’s really great information, because D18 may have no substantial costs to us next year since she got an RA position. While that would have limited impact for D20’s initial FAFSA, I didn’t know how that would impact the FAFSA in future years if she manages to continue doing it.