Financial Aid Fraud

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School administrator here. There is an ugliness and ignorance in this thread. Those who are begrudging families receiving financial aid are actually the ones who are wildly out of sync with school culture.

1. It is not accurate that most families want to get rid of financial aid. I work in school philanthropy and it's the #1 reason that the biggest donors cite when contributing to the annual fund. There's a benefit, as another poster said, to every student to having socio-economic diversity in the community. These students will graduate into a world with income disparity. They need the skills and awareness to communicate with others outside their economic class in order to function in their careers.

2. Why do you care what someone else's children wear? If they found a way to buy name brands cheaply, good for them! They don't owe it to you to spend every last minute trying to increase their income. There's a lot of wealth in these schools, and children who receive financial aid are surrounded by evidence of affluence. If they can wear a North Face jacket and feel more like they fit in, that's wonderful. They're still not going to be able to brag about skiing in Switzerland over winter break, which is what they hear other kids doing.

3. For those two parents working in low-paying nonprofit jobs? Good for them. Yes, the financial aid program wants to support those families! And they are often the ones who volunteer and bring the knowledge about how to run a sustainable non-profit (like the school itself) to their school committees, boards, parents associations.

4. A family getting a "sibling discount?" Why not? We love those families, so long as all the kids can meet the admissions standards. And when you apply $55K per tuition times 3 kids, and then do the math on the pre-tax income needed to support that? It means you can make a good income and still qualify for assistance.

5. I doubt very much there's any fraud going on. FAFSA and the business office know a lot more than you about a family's finances, job situation, etc.

Just by kind, OP, and stay out of it.

Ha, ha. No way you are really a private school administrator. This is the private schools forum not college so FAFSA has nothing to do with it. On the other hand you sound so incredibly clueless may you really are one. So that is why Number 5 is so hilarious that anyone who works in a private school thinks that there is NOT ANY fraud going on? That means you have no idea how people who run their own businesses can hide money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fairly difficult to fake low income. Some services get the information directly from the IRS.

Not if you use an LLC for everything. I helped (through an org for FGLI kids) a kid last year whose family did this and reported their income as $80K and qualified as LI for college (3 kids). Fancy address. Most private meets-needs colleges that she was admitted to denied financial aid but one of HYPSM gave $60k/yr. Her dad had a video on insta to show how to use loopholes to own multiple houses (they had 5-6) through LLC and get money from the LLC — I did not watch it but after April 1, they removed it. I guess they did not want to be caught.

LLCs still have to report gross income on their taxes. It’s all on Schedule C. Having one does not hide what you made even if you can rack up expenses to lower your taxable income.

That is very naive. This is easily manipulated to be whatever you want. Depreciate assets, claim losses, do not report everything, etc.

No, it’s very aware of how taxes work. You can reduce your gross income, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t reported. What the schools do with it is a different question.

“Not report everything” is tax fraud, so yeah, you could do that but I wouldn’t recommend it.

No, you seem clueless how taxes work for small businesses. Many people can reduce their gross income to being virtually nothing to even reporting net losses by inflating expenses and minimizing revenue on paper. It is all legal, or at least close enough, even when they do not report everything. It is done legally. A small business can be very successful but report net losses, year after year. If large companies like Amazon can do it, so can the rest of us.

Lol you don’t know the difference between gross and net, nor how expenses get reported on tax forms, so I think we’re done here.

There were no errors. You should read a book and learn something rather than arguing online.

[Anonymous]

It is accurate that most parents want to get rid of financial aid. While big donors might be okay with it, the average parent paying full tuition knows that they are paying more because the financial aid program is using up a large part of the budget and those funds are desperately needed elsewhere or could be used to decrease tuition significantly for full pay families.

[Anonymous]

There is already a lot of income disparity among full pay families. As well as diversity across interests and backgrounds. The addition of financial aid does little to nothing to actually improve this, however the costs are huge especially when those funds are needed elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fairly difficult to fake low income. Some services get the information directly from the IRS.

Not if you use an LLC for everything. I helped (through an org for FGLI kids) a kid last year whose family did this and reported their income as $80K and qualified as LI for college (3 kids). Fancy address. Most private meets-needs colleges that she was admitted to denied financial aid but one of HYPSM gave $60k/yr. Her dad had a video on insta to show how to use loopholes to own multiple houses (they had 5-6) through LLC and get money from the LLC — I did not watch it but after April 1, they removed it. I guess they did not want to be caught.

LLCs still have to report gross income on their taxes. It’s all on Schedule C. Having one does not hide what you made even if you can rack up expenses to lower your taxable income.

That is very naive. This is easily manipulated to be whatever you want. Depreciate assets, claim losses, do not report everything, etc.

No, it’s very aware of how taxes work. You can reduce your gross income, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t reported. What the schools do with it is a different question.

“Not report everything” is tax fraud, so yeah, you could do that but I wouldn’t recommend it.

No, you seem clueless how taxes work for small businesses. Many people can reduce their gross income to being virtually nothing to even reporting net losses by inflating expenses and minimizing revenue on paper. It is all legal, or at least close enough, even when they do not report everything. It is done legally. A small business can be very successful but report net losses, year after year. If large companies like Amazon can do it, so can the rest of us.

Lol you don’t know the difference between gross and net, nor how expenses get reported on tax forms, so I think we’re done here.

There were no errors. You should read a book and learn something rather than arguing online.

There were multiple errors. For one, inflating expenses doesn’t reduce gross income (Schedule C, part 1), it reduces net profit (Schedule C, line 31).

If you actually knew how business taxes worked, you would see this immediately. Embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taking a low paying job is not cute when you cannot cover your expenses and ask for philanthropy to do so. Be respectful of the families who donated to make financial aid possible. Try to get yourself on better financial footing so you can give rather than always take from the community. If a job cannot cover your expenses, it is a hobby and not a career.

Then there are millions of people doing two and three hobbies in order to survive. 🙄. And news flash, some careers don’t pay as much as others but they are still important to society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is accurate that most parents want to get rid of financial aid. While big donors might be okay with it, the average parent paying full tuition knows that they are paying more because the financial aid program is using up a large part of the budget and those funds are desperately needed elsewhere or could be used to decrease tuition significantly for full pay families.

Source? Has there been a study or poll done of area private schools parents, or even a single school? Or are you just extrapolating out of your ass from your own feelings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fairly difficult to fake low income. Some services get the information directly from the IRS.

Not if you use an LLC for everything. I helped (through an org for FGLI kids) a kid last year whose family did this and reported their income as $80K and qualified as LI for college (3 kids). Fancy address. Most private meets-needs colleges that she was admitted to denied financial aid but one of HYPSM gave $60k/yr. Her dad had a video on insta to show how to use loopholes to own multiple houses (they had 5-6) through LLC and get money from the LLC — I did not watch it but after April 1, they removed it. I guess they did not want to be caught.

LLCs still have to report gross income on their taxes. It’s all on Schedule C. Having one does not hide what you made even if you can rack up expenses to lower your taxable income.

That is very naive. This is easily manipulated to be whatever you want. Depreciate assets, claim losses, do not report everything, etc.

No, it’s very aware of how taxes work. You can reduce your gross income, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t reported. What the schools do with it is a different question.

“Not report everything” is tax fraud, so yeah, you could do that but I wouldn’t recommend it.

No, you seem clueless how taxes work for small businesses. Many people can reduce their gross income to being virtually nothing to even reporting net losses by inflating expenses and minimizing revenue on paper. It is all legal, or at least close enough, even when they do not report everything. It is done legally. A small business can be very successful but report net losses, year after year. If large companies like Amazon can do it, so can the rest of us.

Lol you don’t know the difference between gross and net, nor how expenses get reported on tax forms, so I think we’re done here.

There were no errors. You should read a book and learn something rather than arguing online.

There were multiple errors. For one, inflating expenses doesn’t reduce gross income (Schedule C, part 1), it reduces net profit (Schedule C, line 31).

If you actually knew how business taxes worked, you would see this immediately. Embarrassing.

You are confusing personal gross income with business accounting. You are the embarrassment. Get off this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taking a low paying job is not cute when you cannot cover your expenses and ask for philanthropy to do so. Be respectful of the families who donated to make financial aid possible. Try to get yourself on better financial footing so you can give rather than always take from the community. If a job cannot cover your expenses, it is a hobby and not a career.

Then there are millions of people doing two and three hobbies in order to survive. 🙄. And news flash, some careers don’t pay as much as others but they are still important to society.

Parents should put on their big boy pants and find a job that can support their family instead of pursuing some delusional career that requires them to rely on charity. Don’t let your expenses exceed your income. News flash, this is common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is accurate that most parents want to get rid of financial aid. While big donors might be okay with it, the average parent paying full tuition knows that they are paying more because the financial aid program is using up a large part of the budget and those funds are desperately needed elsewhere or could be used to decrease tuition significantly for full pay families.

Source? Has there been a study or poll done of area private schools parents, or even a single school? Or are you just extrapolating out of your ass from your own feelings?

Are you describing yourself? Talk to people, this is accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School administrator here. There is an ugliness and ignorance in this thread. Those who are begrudging families receiving financial aid are actually the ones who are wildly out of sync with school culture.

1. It is not accurate that most families want to get rid of financial aid. I work in school philanthropy and it's the #1 reason that the biggest donors cite when contributing to the annual fund. There's a benefit, as another poster said, to every student to having socio-economic diversity in the community. These students will graduate into a world with income disparity. They need the skills and awareness to communicate with others outside their economic class in order to function in their careers.

2. Why do you care what someone else's children wear? If they found a way to buy name brands cheaply, good for them! They don't owe it to you to spend every last minute trying to increase their income. There's a lot of wealth in these schools, and children who receive financial aid are surrounded by evidence of affluence. If they can wear a North Face jacket and feel more like they fit in, that's wonderful. They're still not going to be able to brag about skiing in Switzerland over winter break, which is what they hear other kids doing.

3. For those two parents working in low-paying nonprofit jobs? Good for them. Yes, the financial aid program wants to support those families! And they are often the ones who volunteer and bring the knowledge about how to run a sustainable non-profit (like the school itself) to their school committees, boards, parents associations.

4. A family getting a "sibling discount?" Why not? We love those families, so long as all the kids can meet the admissions standards. And when you apply $55K per tuition times 3 kids, and then do the math on the pre-tax income needed to support that? It means you can make a good income and still qualify for assistance.

5. I doubt very much there's any fraud going on. FAFSA and the business office know a lot more than you about a family's finances, job situation, etc.

Just by kind, OP, and stay out of it.

I agree there is an ugliness to this thread. But I do get where it comes from. Private school is a luxury that no one deserves and few can afford. This idea of giving financial aide to make it affordable for a small few all while tuition keeps increasing for all the full pay families (some of who are making sacrifices to afford) annoys average people. It’s not that they don’t agree that everyone benefits from socioeconomic diversity in these schools, it’s that it rarely goes the the lowest groups in the socioeconomic scale. By and large it’s going to middle class and even upper middle class families. And there are plenty of the same type families in public school. But short of a special need (which most of these school are not for nor supporting), financial aide at these schools means we have we created a mechanism to fund an entirely different type of education system than most are offered and then cherry pick a few to participate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School administrator here. There is an ugliness and ignorance in this thread. Those who are begrudging families receiving financial aid are actually the ones who are wildly out of sync with school culture.

1. It is not accurate that most families want to get rid of financial aid. I work in school philanthropy and it's the #1 reason that the biggest donors cite when contributing to the annual fund. There's a benefit, as another poster said, to every student to having socio-economic diversity in the community. These students will graduate into a world with income disparity. They need the skills and awareness to communicate with others outside their economic class in order to function in their careers.

2. Why do you care what someone else's children wear? If they found a way to buy name brands cheaply, good for them! They don't owe it to you to spend every last minute trying to increase their income. There's a lot of wealth in these schools, and children who receive financial aid are surrounded by evidence of affluence. If they can wear a North Face jacket and feel more like they fit in, that's wonderful. They're still not going to be able to brag about skiing in Switzerland over winter break, which is what they hear other kids doing.

3. For those two parents working in low-paying nonprofit jobs? Good for them. Yes, the financial aid program wants to support those families! And they are often the ones who volunteer and bring the knowledge about how to run a sustainable non-profit (like the school itself) to their school committees, boards, parents associations.

4. A family getting a "sibling discount?" Why not? We love those families, so long as all the kids can meet the admissions standards. And when you apply $55K per tuition times 3 kids, and then do the math on the pre-tax income needed to support that? It means you can make a good income and still qualify for assistance.

5. I doubt very much there's any fraud going on. FAFSA and the business office know a lot more than you about a family's finances, job situation, etc.

Just by kind, OP, and stay out of it.

This attitude that kids on significant FA are only there to benefit the rich kids - to help them know how to talk to low income people they might run into - is appalling and unsurprising. Like having a few Black kids around for the benefit of the white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School administrator here. There is an ugliness and ignorance in this thread. Those who are begrudging families receiving financial aid are actually the ones who are wildly out of sync with school culture.

1. It is not accurate that most families want to get rid of financial aid. I work in school philanthropy and it's the #1 reason that the biggest donors cite when contributing to the annual fund. There's a benefit, as another poster said, to every student to having socio-economic diversity in the community. These students will graduate into a world with income disparity. They need the skills and awareness to communicate with others outside their economic class in order to function in their careers.

2. Why do you care what someone else's children wear? If they found a way to buy name brands cheaply, good for them! They don't owe it to you to spend every last minute trying to increase their income. There's a lot of wealth in these schools, and children who receive financial aid are surrounded by evidence of affluence. If they can wear a North Face jacket and feel more like they fit in, that's wonderful. They're still not going to be able to brag about skiing in Switzerland over winter break, which is what they hear other kids doing.

3. For those two parents working in low-paying nonprofit jobs? Good for them. Yes, the financial aid program wants to support those families! And they are often the ones who volunteer and bring the knowledge about how to run a sustainable non-profit (like the school itself) to their school committees, boards, parents associations.

4. A family getting a "sibling discount?" Why not? We love those families, so long as all the kids can meet the admissions standards. And when you apply $55K per tuition times 3 kids, and then do the math on the pre-tax income needed to support that? It means you can make a good income and still qualify for assistance.

5. I doubt very much there's any fraud going on. FAFSA and the business office know a lot more than you about a family's finances, job situation, etc.

Just by kind, OP, and stay out of it.

This attitude that kids on significant FA are only there to benefit the rich kids - to help them know how to talk to low income people they might run into - is appalling and unsurprising. Like having a few Black kids around for the benefit of the white kids.

Yes that is correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is accurate that most parents want to get rid of financial aid. While big donors might be okay with it, the average parent paying full tuition knows that they are paying more because the financial aid program is using up a large part of the budget and those funds are desperately needed elsewhere or could be used to decrease tuition significantly for full pay families.

Do you have any data to support your assertion that most parents want to get rid of financial aid? Please post it, if you do. Also, most schools show on their websites how much financial aid they give, so prospective parents can’t complain that they didn’t know about it. If they think it’s unfair to them, they can choose another school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is accurate that most parents want to get rid of financial aid. While big donors might be okay with it, the average parent paying full tuition knows that they are paying more because the financial aid program is using up a large part of the budget and those funds are desperately needed elsewhere or could be used to decrease tuition significantly for full pay families.

Do you have any data to support your assertion that most parents want to get rid of financial aid? Please post it, if you do. Also, most schools show on their websites how much financial aid they give, so prospective parents can’t complain that they didn’t know about it. If they think it’s unfair to them, they can choose another school.

Ask the parents at your school in a setting where you can get an honest response. The financial aid budget is a large part of the annual budget. Full pay tuition is used to meet this budget.