I’m often an advocate for CC route, but I’ve seen many cases of my daughter’s friends who took a lot longer than 4 years to finish college through CC route, so I think there is an opportunity cost here.GreenGrowTheDollars wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:41 pmPerhaps more straightforward
Have your senior take a gap year. That then gives you full overlap. Your EFC with two kids in college is half for each kid.
But...EFC is just the result of a formula. I don't know ANY schools that promise to meet full need as determined strictly by EFC. Most of the fifty or so "meets full need" colleges use either the CSS/Profile (incorporating a much deeper dive into your assets) or their own financial aid forms.
Identifying colleges where YOUR kids are likely to get large merit (scholarship) awards or that provide generous financial aid for families in your circumstance would generally be effective solutions. Depending on where you live, there may be some great, low-cost choices if your kids have strong grades and test scores. Better SAT/ACT test scores can have a huge payoff if your goal is minimizing college costs.
For students who haven't taken a lot of AP/IB courses in high school, community college can be a very inexpensive route. Strong students with a number of AP/IB credits may not find that route helpful since CCs generally only have lower division classes.
Even if the kid is super focused, only spend 2 years at a CC and then transfer to a 4 year institution. And it also depends on the major, for example for certain engineering majors, it might take at least 3 years at the final institution to get a degree. 5 year vs 4 year, cost might be lower the first 2 years, but the kid will forgo one year of earnings.
My kid took 10 AP classes but only could use 2 at her college. So about 6-8 units at most. She could have graduated one term sooner. So it’s not that beneficial to have that many APs.