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
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 30 2019, @11:25PM (2 children)
If that were true, the credit card industry wouldn't be so lucrative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @12:05AM (1 child)
I stand by what I said - people I knew who grew up poor knew what they could afford.
People I knew who lived beyond their means were the offspring of solidly middle-class parents fresh out of school with expectations of what their lives *should* be like with a college degree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @09:48PM
Dude my upper middle class mother was SO fucking happy with the idea I was going to college.\
I made sure that it was cheap and had a worthwhile major... she didn't give a fuck about any of that.
She still rags my brother to go to school.