The least offensive explanation for what's going on is that these colleges' #financialAid appeals process simply replicate the FAFSA algorithm, so e.g., if your income has gone down since the tax year that FAFSA uses, the college can recalculate your student aid index by plugging your current income into the FAFSA algorithm. These colleges are unwilling to do the work to come up with a different algorithm/process to accommodate circumstances not addressed by the #FAFSA algorithm.
#college

Both UMass Lowell and University of Hartford portrayed this as something they have no choice about. "The FAFSA no longer takes # of kids in college into account, so we can't either."
When I pushed back on that, they both admitted that they could if they wanted but are choosing not to.
If you're not rich and you have multiple kids that will overlap in college, you may wish to ask colleges they're considering applying to whether that will increase their financial aid.
#college #financialAid #FAFSA

Of note:
1) The FAFSA used to consider the number of children in college when determining your need. This was recently removed.
2) Black and Hispanic families are more likely to have more children and therefore more likely to have multiple children in college.
I'm sure this is just a coincidence. 🤔
#college #financialAid #FAFSA #racism