So a mother I was speaking to said you get better financial aid for twins???
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Anonymous
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I don't get it, so you can get more in the way of assistance? You still have to pay it back, right? So how it is better? |
Anonymous
pay it back? |
Anonymous
| Whatchoo talkin' bout Willis? |
Anonymous
| financial aid is not a loan - you don't "pay it back" |
Anonymous
| Twins are a very special circumstance, so they should be given more money. |
Anonymous
| does she mean for college? Your EFC is divided by the number of children in college, maybe she meant that. But that's true of any children attending concurrently, twins or not. |
Anonymous
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The previous poster is correct. When you fill out the financial aid forms the school/government will come back with a number that the parents can be expected to contribute for the students college costs each year. This number is the same amount whether you have 1 kid in school or 5 kids. Assuming that your twins would be going to college at the same time, you would always have 2 kids in school and have to pay the same amount out of pocket each year.
If college is 30K in tuition each year per kid and you are expected to contribute 40K out of pocket each year, with 2 kids in school your total cost is 60K and you can only "afford" 40K. The school / government will usually help you come up with another 20K in grants and loans and scholarships and such. |
Anonymous
| It all depends on your family income. If your household income is high, you get nothing. To complicate matters, each school is different and some financial aid packages include loans as well as campus employment. That is not "free money" in my book. As a previous poster mentioned, 2 kids in school at one time "can" get you more financial aid. If you had 2 kids one grade apart, they would overlap for 3 years. |
Anonymous
| Its better to have twins in that if your kids are 3 years apart, for the first 3 years and last 3 years they see you only have one in college, so can pay more. They only give you more FA on the overlap years. So you are paying the same $40K for 7 years instead of just 4 years. |
Anonymous
I think it's still "better" overall to be I eligible for FA, no? That is my plan. |
Anonymous
| *ineligible* |
Anonymous
| In addition to federal financial aid, some schools will give a discount if you have more than one kid there. GW used to do this, not sure if they still do. |
Anonymous
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And it is much better to have triplets than 3 kids 4 years apart. Let's say college costs 50k per kid per year and the college financial aid calculators say your family can afford to pay 60k a year. With triplets you pay 60k for 4 years while saving 90k per year (total tuition 150k per year-90k on financial aid). So total cost for triplets is 240k or 80k each kid for 4 years of college.
Meanwhile the family with kids four years apart never have kids in college the same time. They can afford to pay 50k per year so get no financial aid. They pay 450k for college for the three kids. Triplet family is ahead of other family by 210k. |
Anonymous
| Oops the other family pays 200k for each kid so 600k compared to 240k for triplet family. |
Anonymous
I have heard this as well. Was even told to have kids closer in age instead of spacing to defer college costs. |