Quadruplets Start College In The Fall: Tuition Times Four


Brooklyn, NY – The Sciannantena quadruplets will be starting college in the fall. The four teen girls will graduate from Bishop Kearney High School in New York in June and will be ready for college the immediate fall. The expenses with attending college, attaining a higher education and degree, can be expensive for one person. Picture tuition times four.

Carmela and Pasquale Sciannantena of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn are pondering how to afford the costs of sending their four daughters to college. It’s overwhelming. Carmela works two jobs, full time in a finance department and as a cashier a few nights a week. Her husband, Pasquale, repairs commercial dishwashers.

“Sometimes when they do ask for things it’s hard, according to Carmela, “But they have clothes on their backs, food on their table, a roof over their heads and two parents who are willing to do whatever they can for them. That counts more than anything else.”

The quartet of college bound 17-year olds: Mariagrazia, Michela, Elisa and Sabrina. Carmela, 43, conceived them after two years of fertility treatments, and gave birth to the girls in August 1995. The couple has another daughter, Gabriella, 14.

The family, like many, is on a budget and is stressed with trying to figure out how to pay tuition. Currently, the family’s expenses include thousands a year for tuition at the Bishop Kearney School they are attending now, which can only increase once they are in college. Carmela admits to staying up nights, trying to figure out how they’re going to pay the bills:

“It gives me anxiety and I don’t know if it’s manageable. I have no idea what I’m going to do … One way or another I’ll have to sacrifice. I might even have to get a third job, but I’ll find a way”

As much as the Sciannantena girls would like to go their separate ways, in hopes of keeping the costs down, they will be commuting from home and applying to the same City University of New York. Tuition would be about $21,720 for the four at the four-year college. They are also considering a two-year college option which would cost $3,900 for each girl, reports the New York Daily News.

Carmela and Pasquale encourage the girls to look into scholarship opportunities while filing financial aid and loan applications.

In 2009, there was a similar situation of multiple siblings attending the same university. The Crouch quadruplets from Danbury, Connecticut were accepted into Yale University, under the early admission plan. All four siblings (Ray, Kenny, Carol, and Martina) faced costs exceeding more than $200,000 a year, according to the New York Times.

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