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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
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday July 30 2019, @10:19PM (1 child)
Maybe that is what is was when a degree was either a BA or a BS, but now it is about collecting dollars while convincing teens to pigeonhole themselves in a specialty when they are far too young to really understand what they like and want to do. We end up with ridiculous majors like human resources or hospitality, where graduates learn no skills other than how to fuck up an established business. In the past, people "bettered" themselves in college by escaping the narrow little wedge of society they came from and learning that the whole world was not like what they grew up with, and more importantly, that diversity in the world is a good thing. Intense specialization can wait until grad school, when students are more mature and have an idea what they like to do and where they want to go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2019, @10:42PM
The nice part about college degrees is the almost always have general eduction requirements, and even then the degrees you mention are more in line with "real world skills". It is no more "intense specialization" than any other. People need to choose something to study, and plenty switch majors.
I just can't get behind whatever rationale is going on to NOT support socialized education. Invest in your country's future, support universal healthcare and education.