I can see this hurting those small NAIA or Div3 college kids potentially; small private schools that don’t use the CSS but rather the FAFSA. However, when one of our kids went to one of those for a 1.5 yrs; there was very little grant money given by that school even with 2 in college.
when that kid transferred to the state school, she qualified for a subsidized loan. In fact, that was the only benefit we ever saw with having now had 4 years of overlapping college kids. 1 kid got a few subsidized loan. To take that away would be annoying, but it wouldnt be a disaster for us I guess.
as far as pells go, if a family qualifies for a pell grant, both kids will qualify; the amounts may be slightly different by a few thousand now, but you have to have a really low EFC in the first place to qualify. If i were in that situation, i’d be talking to the colleges.