Reply to Parents giving up custody of their kids to get need based financial aid

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are many people who get zero support from their families for college who can't get any type of financial aid because of their parents' income.  Once they are over 18, even if they pay all their own expenses, there is no way (other than getting married) to not have their parents' income considered for financial aid purposes.  If I were in that boat, I'd try to get declared independent of my parents before I become 18.  If they aren't paying for me once I move out, I don't consider it fraud.  If the government feels so strongly that parents should pay, count their support and garnish their wages for their deemed portion.  It's not fair to not do that and then attribute income to students who don't see a dime.[/quote]

They are paying for their kids health insurance during college, and few moved out. They are not independent [/quote]

In the cases in the article, but there are many students who don't get any support and are still burdened with counting their parents' income.[/quote]

Well yeah ... our higher ed finance system generally views parents as having the responsibility to help pay for undergrad until the child is 24.  [b]There are a lot of messed up things about college costs, but I can't really get that exercised about this one.[/b]  For really extreme cases (abuse) individual financial aid officers can override the policy. [/quote]

Obviously, you haven't talked to millions (?) of kids who didn't get FA and couldn't afford college or are settled with high debts because their deadbeat and absent parents made too much money and they couldn't declare themselves independent. Go outside your comfort zone sometimes.

Those who cry fraud should read the court briefs filed by those people.  I particularly like the phrase: [i]"The Guardian can provide educational and financial support and opportunities to the minor that her parents could not otherwise provide"[/i] - that's really rubbing it in, isn't it.  Have a court certify that a child is better off educationally if their parents drop them. That's what happened here apparently.
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Agreed. I've come across plenty of stories of people who had to turn down a more expensive college because parents refused to pay. We're not talking about turning down an Ivy for instate, but turning down a solid instate school to go to community colleges.

Then at the same time the colleges willingly admit students who can only afford to come by taking out huge loans and are saddled with an enormous debt upon graduation. They let these students enroll and promise them it's no big deal and they'll be sure to pay it off quickly. Then the student graduates and real world hits them in the face and they're still paying off the loans decades later.

Then you have schools giving out merit aid to students who turn up on campus in new BMWs (yes, I remember a few instances of this happening).

The whole system is utterly broken and it's driven by out of reality tuition levels. [/quote]

The broken part is that states are cutting taxes and not funding public colleges.

I feel sorry for that (small) number of kids with deadbeat parents, but the system cannot be shaped around them. They can go to community college, or wait until 24 when they are considered independent by FAFSA. [/quote]

The lack of public funding has little to do with the skyrocketing costs of private college tuition, which has rapidly outpaced inflation. The whole system is broken. A lot of it is clearly because loans are so easy to get so colleges keep raising tuition with the knowledge that students will just take out more loans backed by the feds. It's a systematic failure due to many factors, not just one or two.

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