I will check with UC FA this week. What’s your alternative plan for twin bears?
From UCSB’s financial aid website:
However, some students may see a decrease in their financial aid eligibility, particularly those who have siblings enrolled in college. Previously the FAFSA divided the Parent Contribution between the number of siblings enrolled in college. Moving forward, this will no longer be the case.
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I can take my nephew as my depedent for tax purpose if there is advantage.
This is what we know - the regulations allow multiple students in college to be considered but have a lot of rules around how that might come into play (and they can’t have a “policy” - each case has to be considered separately):
https://askregs.nasfaa.org/article/36559/can-we-use-professional-judgment-to-adjust-for-number-in-college-starting-with-2024-25
With the new FAFSA, I predicted lots of OOS applicants who admitted to UC will decline the UC offers. Some in-state applicants with multiple kids in college may look for cheaper options.
Great news for the waitlisted!
The other thing that isn’t clear (at least to me!) is that much of the need-based financial aid from the UCs actually comes through the California Student Aid Commissions (Cal grant, the Middle Class Scholarship, etc). So have they made any statements on how they will handle siblings?
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Berkeley states that, when evaluating economic hardship, they will consider "A dependent, undergraduate sibling’s college expenses ONLY if the family is experiencing an additional financial hardship listed above."
That’s for appeals, but it sounds as if siblings’ college expenses wouldn’t be a reason for appeal by itself.
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Yes – if they can afford it!
Even if there is, the financial aid formulas use a prior-prior year tax return, so it wouldn’t come into effect until two years later. That is, financial aid for 24-25 used 2022 tax return.
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Is your son seeking to major in CS or in engineering? If engineering, is there a specialty (like mechanical, civil, etc.)? Additionally, does your son have any preferences about where he’d like to go to school in terms of class sizes, size of the school, urban/suburban/small town/rural, distance from home, preferred states/regions (or those he’d prefer to avoid), importance of intercollegiate athletics, Greek life, etc?
Without knowing more, my first suggestion is to look at some of the lower demand schools that will still have residential life, such as Cal Poly: Humboldt and Cal State Chico.
Next, I would look at WUE schools to see other possibilities: https://www.wiche.edu/tuition-savings/wue/wue-savings-finder/?degreetypes=Bachelor's&studentStatus=Freshmen%20Only. Some schools you may want to consider include:
- Colorado State
- Boise State
- U. of Idaho
- Montana State
- U. of Nevada - Reno
- Oregon State
- Western Washington
- Washington State
If you can provide additional information about your son and his interests, we can suggest additional schools that are likely to meet your budget.
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Thanks. We have more clear picture based on the discussion here, my younger son has refined his goal, trying to get top merit scholarship from one of top 35 schools, those two CA flags are no longer attractive.
He will still need at least one affordable safety school, ideally two…that he would be happy to attend. Could the CSU schools work in that case (noting that some of the CSUs are not safeties for CS and/or engineering)?
It can be difficult to get a residential college experience under $30K and that will likely not be at T35 schools (many of which only give need based aid). Needing that much merit can also change the categorization of schools from more likely to less likely chance of admission. It is not uncommon that one can’t know what type of merit will be offered until applying and getting an acceptance.
I encourage your S to cast a wide net and identify schools that are not in the T35 that he would be happy to attend and are affordable.
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Consider stamps partner schools and not just the ones you’ve heard about, but the ones you haven’t, too.
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Still recommended to apply to the top UC, particularly if BabyBear is interested in Engineering. Cal Engineering has been #3 (right behind MIT & Stanford for years, so if Eng of is major interest, it coudl be worth a certain amount of loans. (At least it would be for me.)
Do you think you can afford the UCs? If so, he can still apply to the flagships and also to some of the less popular campuses. If the UCs are out of range financially, how about the Cal States? He may still want to apply to some of the more residential Cal States (someone mentioned Cal State Chico earlier).
The plan to look for merit is good – but as someone mentioned upthread, he may have to look at a wider range of schools than “top 35”. But once you and he start looking at merit data, hopefully that will become clear.
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Yes, he will still apply for the two flags, but the flags are not as attractive as we thought before.
UC doesn’t give me a break for feeding multiple bears, and none of them is in top 10, we can get better education returns from any of top 10 schools with extra $8K-$15K per year.
Thanks all for the help!
Please remember to also have your son apply to one or two true safeties — these are schools that meet all three of the following criteria
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where he is almost guaranteed to get accepted for his major (be aware that engineering and CS are often a lot harder to get into then other majors for schools that admit by major so be sure to take major into account)
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are affordable without merit aid (unless the merit aid is automatic for kids with his stats based on published merit aid charts) and
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that your son likes and would be happy to attend.
Even very strong students need safety schools. Every spring there are posts on this forum of very strong students who have no acceptances at all, or no acceptances that they can afford, or sometimes only an acceptance at a school they never actually wanted to attend. Figuring out one or two safeties for your son that he would be happy to attend and that you can afford is super important.
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I think it is important to have a good conversation about applying to schools that you would truly like attend, including the safeties. I had to tell my daughter, with the exception of Cal state San Bernardino, all the UC schools she applied to, were schools she should be happy attending.
Here is an example of a school that offers guaranteed merit aid based on a chart.
Click here and then scroll down to the non-resident Arizona awards.
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His safeties are in the top 35, I know he won’t be happy to attend Avg. Joe’s schools.
Money is not the big issue, but he’s still trying to get the top scholarship. He has 4.65 GPA so far, and he will take two more APs this summer and take couple more SAT by Oct. He should be the top 2% of applicants. We understand there is no guarantee to get in any of top 20, but he has much higher chance than my older son. If no luck, just do CC transfer, he refused to attend avg. Joe’s school.
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