Financial Aid question when applying second child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can already tell you this. If you have a retirement plan to dip into, they won't be offering you FA.

This is false. If you have an extremely large retirement plan to dip into, they won't be offering you FA. But if you have a reasonable-sized plan (proportional to your income) they allow a certain amount.

-Someone with a retirement plan who gets FA

Can anyone define "extremely large"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can already tell you this. If you have a retirement plan to dip into, they won't be offering you FA.

Where was this? How do you know? And how old are you? Doesn't all that factor in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can already tell you this. If you have a retirement plan to dip into, they won't be offering you FA.

This is false. If you have an extremely large retirement plan to dip into, they won't be offering you FA. But if you have a reasonable-sized plan (proportional to your income) they allow a certain amount.

-Someone with a retirement plan who gets FA

So how much is a reasonable amount at say, age 45 vs. age 55?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one child in private school. We are applying second child to same private school and other private schools (some more expensive, some less expensive). We did not request financial for first child. But with 2 in private school it will be more challenging. We can dip into retirement savings if needed but would like to avoid. We mostly want to get the right school for DC and then worry about cost later but the financial aid process doesn't seem to work that way. Do we apply for financial aid for all schools that second child is applying or should we try only current school (as we have would have 2 there)? Not sure it hurts DC chances to get in in applying for financial aid so wondering if being selective is better (and perhaps apply for financial aid in future years).

Honestly this kind of annoys me. If you can pay full for one but not two maybe your second kid should be in public. That is what we are doing for now. We have a modest income but are dipping unto savings/ retirement for full pay and are not going to ask any school to give FA, even though it can't be done on our income. Our situation is a bit unusual but I dislike seeing people who appear to live large and then get FA for multiple children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have one child in private school. We are applying second child to same private school and other private schools (some more expensive, some less expensive). We did not request financial for first child. But with 2 in private school it will be more challenging. We can dip into retirement savings if needed but would like to avoid. We mostly want to get the right school for DC and then worry about cost later but the financial aid process doesn't seem to work that way. Do we apply for financial aid for all schools that second child is applying or should we try only current school (as we have would have 2 there)? Not sure it hurts DC chances to get in in applying for financial aid so wondering if being selective is better (and perhaps apply for financial aid in future years).

Honestly this kind of annoys me. If you can pay full for one but not two maybe your second kid should be in public. That is what we are doing for now. We have a modest income but are dipping unto savings/ retirement for full pay and are not going to ask any school to give FA, even though it can't be done on our income. Our situation is a bit unusual but I dislike seeing people who appear to live large and then get FA for multiple children.

+1000

I'm with you, sister!