Falsifying Financial Status

[Anonymous]

Financial aid decisions are overwhelmingly made on income, not assets. Federal tax filings are the defense line against fraud. As someone upthread said, there are ways to cheat on taxes, especially if you run a cash business. But, in that case, the primary offense is not financial aid fraud, but tax fraud. I know no one here wants to hear politics, but the Republicans have repeatedly voted to gut IRS enforcement for exactly this reason - it’s a handout to small business.

[Anonymous]

One of the biggest reasons I think there is cultural rot in the American psyche: we say that small businesses are our touchstone, they for their part try to steal from the Federal government and then make the Rs tell the IRS to F off. We are as bad as third world countries we mock, we just happen to have more cash on hand. If we aren’t honest with ourselves, we’re only going downward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these issues could be solved if college were free for 98% of families. The ultra-rich own enormous wealth and could easily cover everyone’s tuition.

Suggest you pay your own way instead of having a welfare mindset. Or emigrate out of the USA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these issues could be solved if college were free for 98% of families. The ultra-rich own enormous wealth and could easily cover everyone’s tuition.

Suggest you pay your own way instead of having a welfare mindset. Or emigrate out of the USA.

you could argue colleges now have a welfare mindset.

if I were in charge, these super-endowed colleges would be tuition-free with no aid for room and board. and there's a residency requirement (like now, for most). so everyone pays about 20k a year. no financial aid office at all. and it's totally reasonable to take 80k in loans for a t20 schools, these are in line with what kids took out in our day (80s and 90s) before loan amounts soared went crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it's very easy to cheat. they dont ask for much proof beyond taxes. you could EASILY have accounts you just dont list on any forms.

even if you get audited, they'd really need to look hard.

I knew people who cheat when I was in college, I know parents who cheat now, my kids know people who have cheating parents.

I feel like colleges have made a risk/reward chart about how much to go after people outside the industry norm. It's annoying to those of us who don't cheat (full pay for TWO here!). I think this might be a thing AI fixes!

You could, but those account can’t generate any income. Otherwise they’d end up on your income taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most (all?) public universities and many private college will only count one parent's income if parent's are divorced. So some families have the parent who doesn't make enough claim custody. Relative was telling me that she pays nothing for her 3 kids to go to college. She expects 4th child will be free as well. She is divorced and her ex and father of the kids is a doctor who makes over $400k. Mother works part-time and all their kids have gotten free rides to public universities because they list that mother has primary custody.

The other huge glitch is that if you can somehow hide active income to be under 60K which many people who own businesses can do, you do NOT have to compete the assets section thanks to the Simplified Needs Test (SNT). This means savings, investments, or business value aren't considered in aid calculations if you meet these income/benefit criteria, streamlining the form.

My kid’s father and I are divorced, with me having primary custody and both of us had to provide our income information on the FAFSA.

Pretty sure FAFSA only requires both parents’ income when divorced if they live together.

The rule is to provide the income of the parent provides more financial support -- and if that parent is remarried, to also include that stepparent's information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these issues could be solved if college were free for 98% of families. The ultra-rich own enormous wealth and could easily cover everyone’s tuition.

Suggest you pay your own way instead of having a welfare mindset. Or emigrate out of the USA.

you could argue colleges now have a welfare mindset.

if I were in charge, these super-endowed colleges would be tuition-free with no aid for room and board. and there's a residency requirement (like now, for most). so everyone pays about 20k a year. no financial aid office at all. and it's totally reasonable to take 80k in loans for a t20 schools, these are in line with what kids took out in our day (80s and 90s) before loan amounts soared went crazy.

An undergrad student can't even take out 20k in loans. Federal max is like 27k across four years. Any private loans would require a co-signer with good credit (which many poor students don't have).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these issues could be solved if college were free for 98% of families. The ultra-rich own enormous wealth and could easily cover everyone’s tuition.

Suggest you pay your own way instead of having a welfare mindset. Or emigrate out of the USA.

you could argue colleges now have a welfare mindset.

if I were in charge, these super-endowed colleges would be tuition-free with no aid for room and board. and there's a residency requirement (like now, for most). so everyone pays about 20k a year. no financial aid office at all. and it's totally reasonable to take 80k in loans for a t20 schools, these are in line with what kids took out in our day (80s and 90s) before loan amounts soared went crazy.

In other words, you want everyone who makes less than UMC folks to not afford these schools. (Middle class and lower middle class families also got aid in the 90s.) You just want to change the system to benefit yourself.

[Anonymous]

Honesty is for the rich.

[Anonymous]

Have you met the rich?