Steve Blank
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2004 8:38 am
Post subject: Re: FAFSA EFC with 2 starting college in fall - Mr. Blank Pl |
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Steve wrote:
| Quote: | Lucky me, I have two of my sons starting college in the fall. I filled
out the FAFSA forms indicating on both their applications that we were
having 2 students in college for the 2004-2005 school year (question
66). The EFC I got back was about the same for both of the - $13,600
and $14,000. Shouldn't we get some sort of break because of the
hardship of 2 students ? I remember reading a post from Steven Blank
about a mother and son attending college where he said the 2nd
student's EFC should have been about half the first one ?
The apps are filled out under the Social Security numbers not mine or
my wife's but that shouldn't have anything to do with it .... should
it ?
Thanks in advance for any information !
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With two sons in college at the same time you did get a break on each of
their EFC's. Whatever the Expected Family Contribution from the parents
income and assets would have been with only one student has been split
between the two students.
Suppose you had only one student heading into college, filled out the
FAFSA, and the EFC was 20,000. That means that the family is expected to
contribute at least the first $20,000 before aid begins.
But if you have two children going at the same time, and indicated such
on question 66, that same 20,000 is the total amount that the family is
expected to contribute for all students combined. As the last step in
the EFC computation that 20,000 is divided by 2 and each student gets an
EFC of about 10,000. You got two slightly different ones because the
split only applies to that part of the EFC derived from the parents
income and assets - The EFC contribution from the student is not split
and your two boys apparently had differing incomes or assets of their own.
So your son's EFC's indicate that if you had only one student, his EFC
would have been about 27,000. With the split, each boy at $13,600 and
14,000 is eligible for more aid than if he was the only student and had
a $27,000 EFC.
If their colleges filled their aid eligibility completely you might send
two boys to college for $27,000, when you would have been expected to be
able to pay at least that anyway if there was only one student. Of
course, as you've probably already found out, each college makes
decisions of how much of that aid to give based on available funds and
student quality, and that can be a lot or a little of the eligibility.
Just to clear up some possible confusion - you mention a prior post
where the students were a mother and her son. That's a slightly
different situation. The rules are that a student cannot count his
parent as a second student, but the parent can count the son on her own
FAFSA. So whatever EFC the son got from being in a one student family,
his mom's would be about half of it because she reports two students and
benefits from the split.
--
Steven B. Blank
College Financial Aid Consultants
29 Ives Hill Court
Cheshire, CT 06410
(203)250-7761 |
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