Two Kids in College at Once? The FAFSA No Longer Gives You a Break — Here's What to Do Instead

If you have two (or more) children in college at the same time, you might expect the financial aid system to recognize that your money is being pulled in two directions. For decades, it did. The old FAFSA formula cut your expected contribution roughly in half when a second child enrolled.

That rule is gone. Since the 2024-25 award year, the FAFSA no longer divides your expected contribution by the number of children in college — and that's still true for the 2026-27 FAFSA your family may be filling out this fall. For many middle-income families, this single change raised the expected cost of college by thousands of dollars per year, right when they had two tuition bills instead of one.

The good news: you're not out of options. Some schools still count siblings in their own aid formulas, and every school has the power to adjust your numbers. Here's what changed, what it means in real dollars, and the steps you can take.

What changed: from EFC to SAI

Until a few years ago, the FAFSA produced a number called the Expected Family Contribution (EFC). If your family's EFC was $30,000 and you had two children in college at the same time, the formula divided that number between them. Each student's EFC became about $15,000, which meant each one qualified for more need-based aid.

The FAFSA Simplification Act replaced the EFC with the Student Aid Index (SAI) starting in 2024-25. The new formula made several helpful changes, but it also removed the "number in college" division entirely.

Under the current rules:

• Each child now gets the full SAI applied to their aid calculation, no matter how many siblings are enrolled at the same time.
• A family with a $30,000 SAI and two students is now treated as if it can pay $30,000 for each child — $60,000 total — instead of $15,000 each.
• The change applies at every school that uses only the FAFSA to award need-based aid, which includes most public universities.

What this looks like in real dollars

Here's a simple example. Say each of your two children attends a school with a $35,000 cost of attendance.

• Old formula: $30,000 EFC divided by two = $15,000 per student. Demonstrated need at each school: $20,000.
• New formula: $30,000 SAI applied to each student. Demonstrated need at each school: $5,000.

That's $15,000 less demonstrated need per child, per year. Schools don't always meet full need, so the actual loss varies. But for families in the middle — too much income for a Pell Grant, not enough to write two tuition checks — this change hit harder than almost anything else in the FAFSA overhaul.

One important note: if your SAI is very low or negative, this change matters much less. Pell Grant eligibility is based on income, family size, and SAI, and a low-income family with two students generally keeps its Pell eligibility for both.

The FAFSA still asks about siblings — here's why that matters

Confusingly, the FAFSA still asks how many people in your household will be enrolled in college. The answer just doesn't change your SAI anymore.

So why does the question exist? Because financial aid offices can see it — and many of them use it. Federal law gives every aid administrator the power of professional judgment: the ability to adjust the numbers behind your aid calculation when your real situation doesn't match what the formula assumes. Having two tuition bills at once is exactly the kind of situation many aid offices will consider.

That means the sibling question is no longer automatic help. It's a flag you have to act on yourself.

5 things families with two in college can do

1. Pay attention to CSS Profile schools

About 200 colleges — mostly private — use a second form called the CSS Profile to award their own institutional aid. The College Board's formula behind the Profile still considers multiple children in college, and many Profile schools reduce the expected parent contribution for each student when siblings overlap.

This flips the usual assumption that private colleges cost more. A private school that meets full need and counts your second child can end up cheaper than a public university that applies your full SAI to each kid. If you're building a college list right now, don't rule out Profile schools before you see the numbers. Our guide to FAFSA vs. CSS Profile explains which schools require which form.

2. Ask for a professional judgment review at FAFSA-only schools

If your student attends (or is applying to) a school that only uses the FAFSA, contact the financial aid office and ask directly: "Do you adjust for families with more than one child in college?"

Some schools have a standard policy and will make the adjustment when you ask. Others review case by case. Either way, you'll usually need to submit a short written request with documentation — enrollment verification for the sibling, tuition bills, and a summary of what you're paying out of pocket. Our walkthrough of the professional judgment process covers what to include, and we have a guide written specifically for middle-income families making appeals.

A few tips that improve your odds:

• Ask each school separately. Professional judgment is school-by-school, and one school's yes doesn't transfer to another.
• Be specific about dollars. "We are paying $22,000 out of pocket for her brother at State U" is stronger than "we have two kids in college."
• Ask every year the overlap continues. Adjustments usually apply to one award year at a time.

3. Re-run the numbers for both kids, not one at a time

Families often evaluate each child's college costs separately. With the sibling break gone, that can hide the real picture. What matters now is the combined out-of-pocket cost across both students in each overlap year.

Map out each year: which kids are enrolled, what each school actually costs after aid, and what the total family bill looks like. A year with two enrolled students at full SAI may be the year to lean harder on payment plans, 529 withdrawals, or a larger appeal — and a year with one student may be when you catch up. If you use 529 plans, coordinate which account pays for what; here's how 529 plans interact with financial aid.

4. Hunt for aid the FAFSA can't touch

When the federal formula stops helping, aid that ignores the formula matters more:

• Sibling discounts. Some colleges offer a tuition discount when two siblings enroll at the same school at the same time. It's worth a direct question to admissions.
• Merit scholarships don't care about your SAI. Two kids means two chances to earn them — and renewals matter as much as the first award.
• Outside scholarships from local organizations, employers, and community foundations can stack for each child separately.
• State grant programs have their own rules, and some consider family circumstances differently than the federal formula does.

5. Plan for the year the overlap ends

The change cuts both ways. Under the old formula, when your older child graduated, your younger child's EFC roughly doubled — a nasty surprise in year three. Under the new formula, your SAI doesn't change when a sibling graduates, so the aid picture for the remaining student should stay steadier.

But if a school granted you a professional judgment adjustment because of the overlap, expect that adjustment to end when the overlap does. Build that into your plan — and if a sibling leaves college mid-year for any reason, know how that affects your aid and appeals.

The bottom line for overlap families

The FAFSA no longer gives families with two students an automatic break, and no one at the school is going to volunteer one. The help that still exists — CSS Profile formulas, professional judgment, sibling discounts, stacked scholarships — goes to families who know to ask.

If you have an overlap coming (or you're in one now), the single most useful thing you can do is see your full multi-year picture in one place: every child, every year, every school's real net cost. Create your free CollegeLens plan to map your family's costs across both students and find the gaps before they find you. And when the 2027-28 FAFSA opens this fall, file for each student — the sibling question may not move your SAI, but the aid office is still reading your answer.

Paying for one college education is hard. Paying for two at once is harder — but with the right asks, in the right order, you can claw back a real part of what the formula took away.

-- Sravani at CollegeLens