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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 30 2019, @11:39AM   Printer-friendly

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

College Financial-Aid Loophole: Wealthy Parents Transfer Guardianship of Their Teens to Get Aid

Amid an intense national furor over the fairness of college admissions, the Education Department is looking into a tactic that has been used in some suburbs here, in which wealthy parents transfer legal guardianship of their college-bound children to relatives or friends so the teens can claim financial aid, say people familiar with the matter.

The strategy caught the department's attention amid a spate of guardianship transfers here. It means that only the children's earnings were considered in their financial-aid applications, not the family income or savings. That has led to awards of scholarships and access to federal financial aid designed for the poor, these people said.

Several universities in Illinois say they are looking into the practice, which is legal. "Our financial-aid resources are limited and the practice of wealthy parents transferring the guardianship of their children to qualify for need-based financial aid—or so-called opportunity hoarding—takes away resources from middle- and low-income students," said Andrew Borst, director of undergraduate enrollment at the University of Illinois. "This is legal, but we question the ethics."

Also At:
https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-financial-aid-fafsa-parents-guardianship-children-students
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/7/29/20746376/u-of-i-parents-giving-up-custody-kids-get-need-based-college-financial-aid-university-illinois


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday July 30 2019, @05:43PM (17 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday July 30 2019, @05:43PM (#873199) Journal

    Who exactly is going to pay for this utopia of yours?

    The financial markets and their mafia of crony capitalists. Time for them to pay their taxes. They have many times more than enough to pay for everything. The "trickle down" from their rain canopy is insufficient.

    North Korea and Venezuela, not that they aren't corrupt like all authoritarian regimes, are under economic attack by pirates who want to steal their resources.

    The reason the US is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth right now is not because everyone here gets handouts - it's because there is equal OPPORTUNITY for everyone.

    Very funny!

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2019, @05:59PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2019, @05:59PM (#873212)

    Seriously, I hope we move past the brain washing soon. Every kid raised in the US is subject to some pretty serious brainwashing, some of us were more lucky than others at being exposed to more truthful sources. I remember being a teen and arguing with a wiser older person saying "no way it can be that corrupt, no way they could pull off such a thing, someone would speak up! The truth would come out!"

    Ah the naivete of youth, not realizing just how many people will normalize doing bad things.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 30 2019, @09:40PM (13 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday July 30 2019, @09:40PM (#873275)

      Yeas, the brainwashing is usually called propaganda, but that has become a loaded word, so we just call it PR now and there is a massive hugely profitable industry based on it.

      There is a lot of money for your movie [zerohedge.com] from the US military, provided you tell the right story of course.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:03AM (12 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:03AM (#873372)

        Brainwashing has been practiced since forever, the scary part of modern life is how good the puppetmasters have become: focusing their efforts on specific groups for maximum desired effect, delivering messages to those particular masses, and tailoring the messages to elicit the desired responses.

        I don't think that particular Djinni is going back in the bottle, ever, but we can start stepping up the penalties and enforcement for spreading outright lies, and even half-truths, with particular enforcement focus on falsehoods aimed at manipulation of political elections.

        We might also start holding our public officials to a higher standard of truth in their official speeches and press releases. I wouldn't mind at all if governors, congress critters and even the president got booted from office for standing up and deliberately delivering falsehoods to the masses.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:41AM (11 children)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:41AM (#873391) Journal

          I wouldn't mind at all if governors, congress critters and even the president got booted from office for standing up and deliberately delivering falsehoods to the masses.

          You do that on election day. If there are difficulties during the term, a recall or impeachment process may be available.

          What you don't do is tell people what they can and cannot say. It is upon the audience/voter to verify the facts.

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @12:01PM (10 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @12:01PM (#873496)

            It is upon the audience/voter to verify the facts.

            As a mass group, maybe. Individuals are ill equipped to research / verify anything. When sly animal news agencies deliver a 24-7 barrage of misinformation and colored commentary to back it up, and "the other side" responds in-kind with more distortions of the truth... are we, as individual voters, expected to travel to the arctic to verify that the polar bears are drowning, to the remote corners of the great barrier reef to see the corals bleaching, to the war zones to evaluate what kind of atrocities are being perpetrated by whom?

            As a public official, there should be some level of accountability for public statements. When a speech writer puts together a persuasive presser delivered in an official venue as an official statement, that text should be available online with references in perpetuity, just like their voting records.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 31 2019, @01:43PM (9 children)

              by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @01:43PM (#873528) Journal

              Individuals are ill equipped to research / verify anything.

              You're making excuses. You can pick up a phone, write letters, talk to your neighbors, there's a million ways.

              As a public official, there should be some level of accountability for public statements.

              Your interest and your vote are all that's needed. If you vote for, and worse, reelect liars, liars are what you will get. You won't ever get accountability without voting for accountable people.

              --
              La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:19PM (8 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:19PM (#873546)

                You're making excuses. You can pick up a phone, write letters, talk to your neighbors, there's a million ways.

                Ain't nobody got time, nor connections, nor the critical thinking skills for that - the employment and education system guarantees it.

                You're making excuses for the propaganda machine's legitimacy. It never was, and never will be legitimate, but maybe with modern tech it can at least be exposed through transparency and held to a higher level of accountability.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:33PM (7 children)

                  by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:33PM (#873553) Journal

                  Well then, let's put an end to majority rule if people can't handle it.

                  You still have to vote for people that will change the rules to your liking.

                  --
                  La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:00PM (6 children)

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:00PM (#873568)

                    You could take the Olympic swimming medalists from the last 3 games, toss them in the middle of the English channel in a winter storm and ask them to choose a shore to swim to, and they'd have no more chance of getting the outcome they desire than the voters do when mass broadcast of misinformation is not only legal, but made indistinguishable from referenced information from sources whose bias is at least known.

                    Yes, we have to vote in people who will do what we want, vote out those who do what we don't want, but when the information presented about the choices is more distortion and outright lies than truth, and the average voter has no tools to distinguish the two - that should be the priority, right up there with dismantling of Citizens United: another propaganda machine that skews election decisions toward money instead of people.

                    --
                    🌻🌻 [google.com]
                    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:20PM (5 children)

                      by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:20PM (#873577) Journal

                      Sorry, you're wagging the dog. And you still failed to address the problem. You don't regulate speech. I will always fight against that. Citizens United was the correct decision, and the ACLU agrees. And your "swimmer" analogy stinks. Our situation is more like people in a yacht arguing about the decor while the thing is headed towards an iceberg.

                      that should be the priority

                      Still needs your vote, doesn't it?

                      The propaganda isn't the problem, the followers are. Deal with the desire, not the object.

                      --
                      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:53PM (4 children)

                        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:53PM (#873681)

                        You don't regulate speech.

                        No, you don't regulate speech. You do regulate dangerous falsehoods. If I put up a news agency that is presenting the Russian perspective on the world, I label it "RT" and anybody with two functioning neurons eventually clues in that R stands for Russia, the outlet plays by Russian rules whatever they may be. Same for Al-Jazeera, if you're looking for the middle eastern perspective on things.

                        For US based news sources, giving information on US issues that US voters should be exercising judgement over, we should be transparent in where the information is coming from. A story on the topic of global warming should be clear in whether or not it was sponsored by Greenpeace, Conoco Philips or the Kansas State University school of meteorology. When a "news story" on Facebook about race riots in Baltimore is sponsored by the Cambridge Analytica Alamo project for the re-election of Donald Trump, that should also be easily discovered by the viewer of the story at the time of viewing, not exposed in a documentary 3 years later.

                        When "free speech" is yelling FIRE in a crowded theater leading to loss of life, that gets curtailed.

                        When "free speech" is fake news, tailored to push specific demographics' buttons and stampede them into a particular political choice which ultimately is hurting themselves, I'm not saying it should be stopped, I am saying it should be clearly identified for what it is and who is backing its distribution.

                        --
                        🌻🌻 [google.com]
                        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:50PM (3 children)

                          by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:50PM (#873701) Journal

                          Sorry, you don't regulate speech. That is absolute. You teach people to think for themselves instead of following the herd instead.

                          --
                          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:13PM (2 children)

                            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:13PM (#873772)

                            Transparency of sources is not regulation, it's enabling people to think for themselves instead of stampeding around in the dark killing themselves when someone scares them.

                            --
                            🌻🌻 [google.com]
                            • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:20PM (1 child)

                              by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:20PM (#873777) Journal

                              Even transparency isn't the issue. The problem is people choosing to stampede around in the dark killing themselves when someone scares them. I do not care how fake the news is. The choice to act violently, regardless of motivation, is entirely personal.

                              --
                              La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:48PM

                                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:48PM (#873786)

                                Say what you want, that's your right.

                                What I think _could_ work, but likely will not happen, is that responsible reporting could start providing transparency of sources, transparency of funding, and a reasonable breakdown of the motivation of the producers of the content. If "official" sources of information provided this background with regularity, "fake news" would just be naked out there like cat videos on Reddit. Idiots will still respond to the naked imagery, but without some authenticity behind it, only the biggest idiots will be triggered in to self damaging actions by it.

                                The "source documenters" can debate back and forth about who is coloring what how, like Wikipedia more or less, if they care to, but just being able to have that expectation of occasionally easy to find backing documentation for stories that you care about deeply should enable many people to make better decisions.

                                When "free speech" was enshrined in the constitution Silence Dogood, Harry Meanwell, Alice Addertongue, Richard Saunders, and Timothy Turnstone were the epitome of slight of hand reporting - publishing pamphlets to make people think without tying their content to a particular preconceived positions. Most "speech" came from mouths that the listeners could physically see and hear, and judge at least the "face value" of its authenticity. More and more, "deep fake" video imagery is going to be used to change opinions, and if the standard of reporting continues to include little to no veracity of the sources - it's going to make it virtually impossible for the majority of people to make good decisions because of the difficulty in sorting the garbage input from the truth.

                                It will, however, give disproportionate control to those with the resources at their disposal to generate targeted messaging, whether using completely fake stories or just selective targeted messaging from the billions of stories available each day. Basically, those with the money can rule if they chose to, as it always has been. We have the opportunity to at least raise the cost through education and expectation, or we can continue to accept the typical output of PS103, Grover Cleveland High School, and your local community colleges and the terrific decisions they make based on Fox News and NPR - because those are the level of tools provided to the average voter, and they are woefully inadequate to make informed decisions from the "news" that's available to them today.

                                --
                                🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 31 2019, @12:42AM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 31 2019, @12:42AM (#873346) Journal

      Seriously, I hope we move past the brain washing soon

      Careful what you wish for, the next step may be brain bleaching.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:54AM

        by deimtee (3272) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:54AM (#873432) Journal

        Nah, next step is to hang them out to dry.

        --
        If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.