Scholarship Search Spotlight: Double Trouble | College Coach Blog

As a new mom to twin daughters, paying for multiple students in college at one time is something I think about all the time. I’m sure I’m not alone.  As we discussed last week, merit aid (or scholarships) are available to students for a variety of reason – many of them unrelated to academic, athletic, or artistic prowess! Just as there are scholarships for tall and short individuals, there are a handful of colleges that currently offer special discounts or scholarships to siblings and multiples. While not all colleges offer discounts or scholarships to multiples, I would highly encourage families to ask financial aid offices if they do offer such programs. You may be surprised at what you learn! For example, Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island offers a $2,000 discount to families who have more than one child enrolled in the school at the same time. Western New England College in Massachusetts and Otterbein University in Ohio both offer a $1,000 discount to siblings enrolled simultaneously. If you have twins, there are also scholarships tied to both of your students attending the same college.  If your children really want to attend the same school, there are some schools that will offer a discount to one or both of the children attending that school.  Schools that offer these types of programs include:

• Randolph College – Lynchburg, VA.  Offers a 15% discount on tuition when twins are enrolled, this scholarship is renewable and there is no application required for this.
• Sterling College – Sterling, KS.  Each twin receives a 50% scholarship.  Both twins must be enrolled at the same time and meet the requirements of a 2.2 GPA and an ACT of an 18 or higher.
• Morris Brown College – Atlanta, GA & Lake Erie College – Painesville, OH.  Families only pay full tuition each year for one twin and tuition is waived for the other.

Keep in mind that there are many resources available for finding scholarships. The Mid Atlantic Twin Registry keeps a list of colleges offering discounts for being a twin or multiple. I recently joined the local mother of twins group in Massachusetts and they offer scholarships that range from $500 to $250 for students who qualify.  If you are an active member of a local twins group, ask they have scholarships available for your children.  No matter how much the scholarship is, any amount can help cut down on the costs that you will have to pay out of pocket!