Are you headed to college next fall with a sibling or two? In years past, many families were granted extra financial help from the federal government if they were supporting two or more students in college. But that “sibling discount,” as it was known, no longer exists.
Today’s FAFSA does ask about the number of children attending college. But this information won’t automatically boost the amount of federal aid that a low-income family might receive, as it did in the past.
Family Rules for the FAFSA
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA was overhauled in 2024. With it cam some welcomed changes, including, a shortened and simplified form, and more generous criteria for Pell Grants — free government money for college students with the greatest financial need.
Students whose family’s adjusted gross income is less than 275 percent of the poverty guideline (or 325 percent students with single parents) automatically qualify for the maximum Pell Grant. For these individuals, the lack of a sibling discount won’t affect their federal aid eligibility.
On the other end of the spectrum, higher-income families typically make too much money to qualify for federal Pell Grants,
While many students will receive more federal aid under the current FAFSA, one group is worse off: families that don’t qualify for the maximum Pell Grant and have more than one student in college,
Why The Sibling Discount Ended
Before the overhaul of the FAFSA, parents and counselors were used to seeing the term Expected Family Contribution, or EFC, to describe their eligibility for federal aid. The lower the number, the more aid a student might be eligible for.
The EFC also factored in how many children from the same family were attending college at the same time. For example: A student’s EFC was cut in half if the family had two kids in college at the same time; it was cut by two-thirds if the family had three kids in college at the same time, and so forth.
But the EFC was eliminated and replaced with the Student Aid Index, or SAI. Similar to the EFC, the lower the SAI number, the more federal aid a student is eligible to receive. But there are a few key differences. Among them, the SAI does not allow for a sibling discount.
Bottom line: The amount of federal aid a student is eligible to receive will no longer increase if that student has one or more siblings attending college at the same time.
What To Do Next
Many parents have been asking how to keep their sibling discount and get help for siblings headed to school next year. It won’t be easy, but there are two options to consider:
- First, college financial aid officers must distribute federal aid using the Student Aid Index calculation. However, these folks do have some leeway if your family situation is particularly challenging or dire. They can use their “professional judgment” to adjust your federal aid in special cases.
- Second, colleges are free to consider other factors when giving you their own institutional aid, which is money drawn from their endowment and privately funded scholarships.
Three Strategies
Speak up now. If your financial aid offer is simply too low given the number of kids you have in college, let your school’s financial aid and admissions offices now as soon as possible.
Make sure to tell the financial aid officer that you have a sibling (or two or three or four) in college and your family cannot afford to pay tuition for all without significant help. If there are other extenuating circumstances that will not be captured by the FAFSA or, if applicable, the CSS Profile, describe what is happening in your family and make your best financial case.
If you are in the hunt for schools, look for colleges that give lots of their own aid. You can identify these schools by using each college’s net price calculator, which gives you an estimate of how much aid you’ll get from a given school. Each college is required to have one posted on their website. These calculators are routinely updated with the lasted FAFSA rules. They also take into account the school’s own policies for using institutional aid and privately funded scholarships.
Austin Tannenbaum is editorial manager of the fact-checking startup Gigafact. He got an undergrad degree in environmental advocacy at the University of Redlands and is currently at The New School for Social Research getting a master’s in creative publishing and critical journalism. He is passionate about helping college students graduate with less debt than he has.