Parents of TWINS - your EFC per child gets lower?

Parents Forum
1

So, we have twins, but we also make $175K a year… The school one of them wants to go to will be a net $51K after an expected $13k grant… however the online calculator did not take into effect that we will have 2 kids in college at the same time… is that a factor that might / will lower our EFC per child? No way we can afford $100K a year for 2 kids… the other is looking at similarly priced schools.

We do have some time… they are in 10th grade… And we have hired a company to help us get the best price(s) for whichever schools they go to.

2

https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm to estimate your FAFSA EFC for federal aid.

For colleges’ own calculation of your EFC and their own aid, use their net price calculators on their web sites.

3

I know this isn’t what you are asking…but I have to remark…you HIRED a company to get the best aid possible from colleges? What have they promised you? And how much did you pay. It is HIGHLY unlikely that a company can get you more aid than the school,would be giving you anyway.

Food for thought.

Anyway…to your question…if you can’t afford $100,000 in costs every year…then you need to also look at schools that are less costly. With a $175,000 income, your total EFC (the total adding both students together) will be in the $45,000 to $50,000 a year range…or,about $25,000 a year each kid.

BUT the vast majority of colleges do NOT meet full need for all accepted students. So you very well could,be expected to pay more than that amount at most schools. And this is even with the “help” of that company you are hiring.

Add to,that, the generous colleges that meet full need also are VERY competitive for admissions…many admitting less than 10% of applicants. Keep,that in mind as well.

The net price calculators on the college websites are currently set up for students enrolling in fall 2017. They are updated annually…so,you anything you are getting now would be a gross estimate. Having said that, the NPCs I’ve seen DO ask how many students will be enrolled in college. If the NPCs you are using don’t ask that…they will not be particularly accurate for you,

4

You may not have notice the question on the NPC. Usually it asks for the number of family members, and then the next question is ‘How many of those family member will be attending college this year (do not include parents who are students)’

For FAFSA, it will split the EFC in half (with an adjustment if one student has more income/assets than the others). For schools that use CSS, they develop their own formula for calculating EFC, but as a general rule it is about 60% of what it would be without a sibling in school.

5

Agree with Thumper.

Also agree. But note, unless a school meets full need, even splitting the CSS may not help much.

Run the NPC’s…for many, they are a reasonable approximation.

6

We have similar income and two in college this year. Each has a FAFSA EFC of a bit more than $30k, so combined 60k. Our kids targeted merit aid.

7

You will want to target merit. for giggles you can try an NPC of a tippy top endowment school as that would be the most generous scenario, but like as not that won’t be on the table anyway. You are looking at maybe 60% plus gap of 100,000$*2 . You could save the money you are paying your college consultant for sure as you are on CC in your kids 10th grade. I have yet to see a calculator that does not ask about other kids in college, so re do your target NPCs. Conversations to to have with your kids should include local options, merit, national merit via the PSAT test next year and test prep/rigour of curriculum. Be able to state how much money you can give each kid for college before you enter on some college visiting quest. If you have them looking at 100K a year combined, you will need to readjust their expectations. Even if your kids both got full tuition at OOS options, you are looking at at least 80K for JUST room and board. Just have a number for them. Make sure that this covers anything that necessitates going over a 4 yr program.

8

This is going to depend on whether your twins apply and get accepted to schools that meet full need. If your EFC with twins turns out to be $25,000 per year (each) and they attend a school that meets full need, then you will pay $25,000 per year, per twin. This may include loans. If they apply to schools that don’t meet full need then you will pay more than your EFC, and this may mean full pay, depending. Your children may want to target schools that will give merit simply because most of the schools that meet need are very hard to get into.

You don’t need a company. You need to decide if your twins have the grades and scores etc to apply to schools that meet full need. Then you also need to add some merit schools to that list. We are not sure what kind of students your twins are and what schools they like, so it’s hard to provide more info now.

Yes your EFC with twins is lower, but this lower EFC will only matter if they apply and get in to a specific set of schools.

9

You appear to be going about this backwards, but thankfully it is still very early. It seems as though you are allowing your twins to create a list of schools that they like and then hiring somebody to get you the best price. That’s not how it works.

10

Other things to consider:
If you are self employed or a business owner the NPC may not be accurate for you
If you own real estate outside of your primary residence the NPC may not be accurate for you. Real estate outside of your family home is an asset. Any rents that you receive is income

Of your 175k is after your tax free contributions to your retirement account, those contributions will be added back in.

As far as your etc being split in half it will happen for federal aid purposes but not necessarily for schools giving their own institutional aid. The college will want to know where both children are attending and how much will you be paying.

For example if your federal EFC is 25k per kid and twin 1 gets a scholarship that covers (tuition fees room and board) leaving you with less than 10k to pay to meet his need (or is a div 1 recruited athlete where most of his/her costs are covered) and twin 2 attends a school that meets 100% need using their own institutional funds ( it is very unlikely you will be eligible for federal or state funds) they will expect a larger contribution from you because even though you have two in college you are only paying out of picket for one.

Have your kids prep/study for the junior year PSAT, because it will be used to determine national merit $$.

Get a refund from this paid advisor. There is nothing that they are going to be able to deliver on that you can’t learn for free from CC.

11

<<<<
however the online calculator did not take into effect that we will have 2 kids in college at the same time.
<<<

Sure it does. What answer did you put when it asked you how many children would be in college? If you overlooked the question, you likely would have been flagged to answer it. Did you mistakenly put ONE child?

EFC isn’t just based on income. Do you have assets? Large retirement contributions each year? Properties.


[QUOTE=""]
And we have hired a company to help us get the best price(s) for whichever schools they go to.

[/QUOTE]

Lol…I hope you didn’t pay them much. A company can’t get you “the best prices” to whichever schools your kids choose. Do they sell Brooklyn Bridges, too?

12

That’s not wholly true. I know someone who does this for a living. Coincidentally, a friend of mine hired him and considers the money she spend worth every cent.

She had a kid who wanted to go to MIT or Harvard, preferably MIT. Consultant advised her to have him apply to a couple of schools ranked just a bit lower, even though he got into both MIT and Harvard early–this was before H had SCEA. Kid’s dad lives abroad and won’t pay child support or anything for college. Owed hundreds of thousands of dollars of child support by the time this kid applied to college.

So, even though he was into MIT and Harvard, he applied to some other top schools. One of them agreed to waive non-custodial parent contribution and offered VERY generous financial aid.

The consultant drafted a letter to MIT and Harvard for her; he included the offer from the other school. Letter to MIT said something like MIT is his first choice and it would be a shame if he were forced to go somewhere else for financial reasons. Stressed the fact that mom had taken every step possible to collect child support without success and backed this up with court papers showing how hard she had tried. ( Letter to H didn’t say it was kid’s first choice, because it wasn’t.)
.
MIT waived non-custodial parent contribution and upped its financial aid offer considerably. H refused to budge; father can pay–we won’t waive. Anyway, kid went to MIT.

A couple of years later, little sib did too. As soon as little sib applied, MIT waived the non-custodial parent contribution, based on decision to waive for big brother. Also got a very generous package.

Total cost for consultant? $1,000. Do I think MIT would have waived the non-custodial parent contribution if another top college hadn’t? I’m not sure. Would they have come up to within a few thousand dollars of the other offer? I seriously doubt it. The consultant specifically told my friend WHICH top colleges were mostly likely to waive non-custodial parent contribution in the circumstances.

In another case involving a FAFSA only OOS public, consultant structured a divorce to get aid. Divorce agreement provided that W would get the family co-op, which was worth millions. At that time, FAFSA didn’t include home equity. Mother had very low income. Kid got extremely high fin aid based on mom’s income. After he finished college, she sold the family co-op and was set for life. Father agreed to giving W co-op instead of alimony BECAUSE of the impact on fin aid.

BTW, my friend’s kid and mine attended the same NYC public magnet. The magnet has the consultant speak at college info nights. Yes, he gets clients from those speeches. Still, the school is well aware that most of the clients from that school think it was worth it. That’s particularly true for immigrant parents who would have difficulty filling out FAFSA forms without help. And there’s lots of good info in the free talks he gives.

So, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss financial aid consultants.

13

I’d be ashamed to have done something like this, much less tell other people about it.

14

Re: #11

Looks like that particular consultant had specific uncommon knowledge about divorced parent situations.

However, it can be difficult for a potential customer to know how expert a given consultant is before using him/her.

15

It does seem like an exaggerated story, since the publics that do give good OOS financial aid are not FAFSA only, and the FAFSA-only publics that did give non-zero OOS financial aid did not give “extremely high” OOS financial aid.

16

We have twins who are freshman now. Shoot for merit aid. Stanford expected us to pay $100k per year for both of them combined. Not what we expected. And they knew we had 2. They did give us “grant aid” but $100k was well above our EFC. We would have made it happen too but my kids were not willing to be college poor. Thank goodness. I don’t know about the validity of hiring someone to help you get more aid. That seems wonky for sure.

17

Lol…I hope you didn’t pay them much. A company can’t get you “the best prices” to whichever schools your kids choose. Do they sell Brooklyn Bridges, too?

Well, your snarky reply aside… they do an awful lot beyond look for schools. They help you reorganize your assets so that you do qualify for more aid. The guy who I hired has pretty much been on 50+ prestigious TV news shows about how to best finance for college. He also worked for the IRS, and he worked for the FBI. Now, he owns a tax business and collegge planning business, since he left his government jobs. He’s been interviewed by Forbes magazine, and Money magazine among others. He has a top 100 book on amazon in the finance section.

But we have not yet done much together… we had 2 meetings of a planned 14 meetings… his service also teaches kids how to write great essays. We get a full year of unlimited SAT and ACT online testing included. And finally, they will do mock interviews to help the kids know how to handle real college interviews.

18

Yet here you are. This is the point, there is no magic, if your salary is too high for aid but too low to be able (or maybe even to be inclined) full pay/close to 100k a year, welcome to reality. The best thing to do now is to have a come to jesus meeting with your kids where you state the truth about money and hop off the merry go ground of college visits until you have clarity. If you buy into the magical college planner, I fear your kids don’t have any idea that there are financial limits. The other reality is just how many kids there are out there with ultra high stats competing for merit in good schools. You probably have a 10th grade PSAT score by now? That is a nice baseline. 10th grade is a great time to start, you spend enough time on CC and read posts by the incredibly helpful heavy hitters, you will have any fantasies about the process scourged form your brain by next week. My 11th graders are now pretty clear on the options. You might learn that your kids don’t even have to worry much about essays and interviews once their school lists are culled. We have a higher EFC with 3 in college, there is no reality where we pay 120K a year for university.

19

Do not confuse “qualifying” for financial aid with “getting” financial aid. Both my D and my S received financial packages all over the map involving both merit aid and need based aid.

20

I hope they’re comfortable taking away that aid from students who ACTUALLY needed it.

It never ceases to amaze me how low people will stoop to save money.