Overlapping Kids in College & Divided EFC....Why???

DoingOurBest
Mon, 02 Apr 2018 20:32:45 +0000

So, like a lot of you, we are in the process of selecting a college for our child. A few on the list are “meets full need” top 25 dream schools. We feel very fortunate with the great choices she has!

As anticipated, we did not qualify for any need based aid at any schools. She did get some nice merit scholarships at some schools. But, the T25 schools really don’t give any merit, so we would be full pay at those.

I was playing around with the net price calculator at her top choice, full-pay school. I was trying to figure out what we might get for need based aid when our youngest enters college in a few years and we’ve got two in college at the same time. I kept all of the numbers the same, except I added a “sibling in college”. I was surprised to see that we would qualify for a need based grant that would cut my daughter’s full pay school in half for that one year.

While I am happy that we may qualify for a grant for that one overlapping year, I fail to see the “fairness” behind the methodology.

Take two families with identical income and assets, both with two children. Assume that Family #1 has kids that are one year apart (so 3 overlapping years) and that Family #2 has children that are four years apart (so zero overlapping years). It seems to me that Family #1 stands to get significantly more need based aid than Family #2. But, the question is Why? Both families have identical incomes, identical assets, and eight years of college to pay for. And, both families had 18 years to prepare for college payments.

I understand that years with multiple kids in college are difficult, but it just doesn’t sit right with me that the age difference between our kids can have such an impact on need-based aid.

What am I missing here? I’m not complaining about the methodology, I really just want to understand it. Perhaps more folks are paying tuition out of “current earnings” vs “savings” than I realize.