Financial Aid in Future Years

mom2collegekids
Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:09:57 +0000

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Are upcoming kids accounted for in the oldest base year aid calculation;*

NO. Only students who are IN college are counted. There’s no guarantee that future kids will go to college. However, the overall size of your family gets counted when figuring contribution.

Don’t mistakenly think that EFC is a number that indicates some kind of sliding scale for what you’ll have to pay. Most people have to pay MORE than their EFC. Most schools cannot meet need.

Colleges use EFC to determine whether your income is low enough to get free fed aid.

How does our family get comfortable that a college/university will treat us fairly in years 2-4, especially where our oldest is likely to get little to no aid in the initial year?

That’s the scary part. There’s a mom who posted today whose daughter got great aid package the first year, and a lousy one for soph year - even though income/assets didn’t change. Some schools give better FA the first year to attract students, and then give worse packages later. So, you’d need some kind of assurance from the particular school.

Also, remember, most schools don’t meet need anyway. So, even if your “need” goes up with more kids in college, your child’s FA package may stay the same.

Usually, only the top, top schools guarantee to meet need without big loans.

Another problem can be…say child #1 gets into a top, top school that promises meets need. Great! You’ll get good aid from THAT school if you qualify But, say child #2 & child #3 don’t get into generous schools. You could end up paying for nearly all of child #2’s and child #3’s costs and some of child #1’s costs.

One way to combat this is to apply to schools that will give your child merit scholarships for stats. IF your child keeps a good GPA in college, then you’ll know that - at least - you’ll have that money to help pay for college.

If I were you, I would definitely look at some schools that give good merit if your oldest has good stats.

What are her stats?