Hi there! My son’s at the University of Tulsa on a full ride (tuition, fees, room, and board). Now our daughter is a senior in HS, and I’m back to running NPCs. Most of them ask if there’s a sibling in college, and I’m not sure how to approach this question in order to produce the most accurate result on the NPC. (“Yes, 4-year private, but full ride” is obviously not an option…lol.) Should I say that we don’t have another kid in college? Thanks for any help you can provide!
You do have another child in college. Just say yes.
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Thank you so much for the help! It brings down the cost by a lot if I mark that I do have another child in college, so I just wanted to make sure I’m not in for any rude awakenings down the road. Appreciate you weighing in! 
It’s a Yes.
If they’re not asking the expense - I mean some are $30K, some are $100K.
But they’re cutting you a break however they’re doing it - assuming you have to spend x $ on the education. It doesn’t mean the final result will match the NPC (depends on the school) - but the answer is certainly yes to the question.
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Or they aren’t cutting you a break because even with another sibling in college, the asset picture skews their aid formula. But you can’t go wrong just answering the questions they ask.
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I asked about how siblings were calculated at one college, and what I was told was that they basically calculate what they think you can pay for college for one student and then add a percentage (15% was the one I was told) to that for each additional child. So, for example, if they estimate that you can pay $50k for college for one student, they assume you can pay $57.5k total for BOTH students. Then, they take that $57.5k and divide by 2, so they would expect you to pay $28.75k for EACH. Thus, they’d provide aid assuming you can pay $28.75k even though they have no idea what the other school is doing.
Now, I’ll note that the NPCs ask about the type of school (4 year private, 4 year public, etc.) so I wasn’t sure how that actually factored in. But the idea was that they were going to calculate your need based on their formula and simply give aid based on that regardless of how much another college was giving.
Anyway, datapoint of one, so you might reach out and ask how they calculate it without telling them the specifics of your other student.
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Just to be clear, FAFSA does not take siblings in college into account when calculating SAI.
So, I will assume you are talking about CSS Profile schools. Many CSS schools do take siblings into account when calculating what a family can pay. Even if the NPC doesn’t ask how much the family pays for the sibling’s college, many actual CSS forms will ask that question. So, I’m not sure about the accuracy of NPCs that don’t ask what is really asked when one sits down to fill out the form.
I agree with others you should run the NPCs reflecting the sibling in college. I also agree you might reach out to FA staff at each college on the list and ask for details on how they handle the sibling and college costs. Some may tell you, some might not.
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I haven’t filed a Profile in a very long time. BUT when I did for my second child, I did have to indicate what I was paying per year for child one (who had a $10,000 a year scholarship which at the time was a lot).
It did t matter because we didn’t qualify for need based aid anyway…but we’re still verified every single year for kid one.
So…I agree, reach out to the college. You don’t have to tell them your name! Just ask the question.
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I have no idea if you are in for a rude awakening, but I have wondered about this as well.. D24 has a classmate whose need-based financial aid package has been very different each year at their meets-need college (CSS profile school).
The family contribution for his freshman year was 20K. For his sophomore year, it dropped to $3000 (yes, $3000). Now for his junior year, it has rocketed back up to nearly 30K. I’ve got to imagine that there may have been some wild changes in other parts of the household’s financial profile over the last several years and possibly their 2022, 2023, and 2024 tax returns were quite different.
Nevertheless, I also suspect that it might have to do with how the college handled a sibling with a full ride. He has a sister who is one year younger. When filling out the financial aid forms for his sophomore year, the family had no idea that the younger sister was going to get a full ride scholarship (including room and board). My guess is that the college assumed the family would be paying the younger sib’s college tuition. Instead, the family went from paying for a private high school for the sister to paying nothing at all for that her college. Of course, last spring when filling out the CSS profile for D24’s friend’s junior year, the family reported that they were paying $0 for the younger sister’s educational expenses. I’m guessing that it at least part of the reason why their family contribution jumped back up. Or maybe the parents just messed up the CSS two years ago, resulting in a dramatic drop in parent contribution for a single year. I just think the college would have caught that.
Thank you for sharing this! Yes, this is the kind of thing that makes me nervous! College is such a big purchase, and I want to make sure that when we ultimately commit, we’re as certain about affordability as we can be!
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