5 ms·

Er, "no significant savings, income, or other resources to draw upon." The "system" generally tries to support poor people, but there are an awful lot of rules

Er, "no significant savings, income, or other resources to draw upon." The "system" generally tries to support poor people, but there are an awful lot of rules in place to try and make sure people pay their "fair share" and prevent cheating. I think usually those rules have more or less the desired effect, but like any rules, they can be rather blunt instruments, and end up hurting people as well. Some examples: + Foreign students are often ineligible for grants and aid (even those from the university itself), no matter how poor they and their parents are. [There are exceptions, e.g. Harvard (which has lots of money and extremely high admission standards), but my experience is that they are very rare.] + In many cases a parent's income is considered in calculating the student's resources, even if the student has no contact with or leverage over the parent and that parent is not willing to pay anything. The reason for such rules is obvious: to avoid parents pretending to be estranged in order to avoid paying their fair share. However it still can end up hurting students who really don't have any choice in the matter...

mjmahone17 14y ago
Another example: having tax-free purchasing power can count against you. Specifically, clergy may receive a tax-free payment on their home. That is counted by colleges as income, even if your home is entirely paid off, which can boost your "income" from 20k/yr to 50k/yr. I know one student who must pay about 15k/yr to a "full-need" college, despite her parent's annual income being 25k.
Moto7451 14y ago
In my case I couldn't receive FAFSA and in turn many other forms of financial aid until I turned 23 (technically, the year where on January 1st I was 23) because I'm estranged from my parents and couldn't get their tax return info. I was making between 17K & 20K per year before 2011. This pretty much put a University education out the realm of possibility for a while. In the end my (paid out of pocket) associates degree, some luck, and a few Hail-Mary career moves put me in roughly the situation I hoped to be in post university and I didn't have to graduate at 25/26 years old with student loans.
Crake 14y ago
Your second + fits my situation exactly. My parents are divorced and neither would pay for college. I'm 24 and basically just starting college now that I can at least get enough loans from the government to afford community college tuition. I've had to work really shitty jobs for the last six years just to be able to pay for rent and food. (The rent they would have charged me to live at home was more expensive than my options for moving out.) If I lived somewhere like europe I'd be graduated and quite happy by now instead of really bitter.
- brianchu 14y ago
  You qualify for aid. If you're 24, you are now an independent student and parent income is no longer factored into the financial aid equation. You are basically low-income in a college's eyes. Education about financial aid goes a long way. Just because someone qualifies for aid but does not seek it does not prove my point wrong. http://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/699-fafsa-and-the-independent-student http://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/699-fafsa-and-...
  - Crake 14y ago
    Wow, way to be a dick. I like how you also ignored the part where I said I had to wait six years for the aid WHICH I AM CURRENTLY NOW ON that you somehow think I'm still not familiar with due to laziness/stupidity.
lilsunnybee 14y ago
Isn't financial assistance for the non-wealthy generally intended to counteract class boundaries to getting a quality education? If you have wealthy parents, almost always you grew up wealthy and well-educated, and various assistance programs are just not intended for you. Yeah it sucks to accumulate $50,000 / year in debt to maintain your social class standing by attending prestigious universities, if your parents could care less, but why is it some rich kids birthright anyways to attend some wonderful school, when there are probably kids a lot more hardworking, driven, and coming up from adversity, that are more deserving?
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  The point is that there isn't a perfect correlation between "unable to pay" and "covered by aid", despite the best intentions, so some of those people not getting aid are not wealthy at all (and they may be downright poor). People fall through the cracks, and that's a problem.

mjmahone17 14y ago

Another example: having tax-free purchasing power can count against you. Specifically, clergy may receive a tax-free payment on their home. That is counted by colleges as income, even if your home is entirely paid off, which can boost your "income" from 20k/yr to 50k/yr. I know one student who must pay about 15k/yr to a "full-need" college, despite her parent's annual income being 25k.

Moto7451 14y ago

In my case I couldn't receive FAFSA and in turn many other forms of financial aid until I turned 23 (technically, the year where on January 1st I was 23) because I'm estranged from my parents and couldn't get their tax return info. I was making between 17K & 20K per year before 2011. This pretty much put a University education out the realm of possibility for a while. In the end my (paid out of pocket) associates degree, some luck, and a few Hail-Mary career moves put me in roughly the situation I hoped to be in post university and I didn't have to graduate at 25/26 years old with student loans.

Crake 14y ago

Your second + fits my situation exactly. My parents are divorced and neither would pay for college. I'm 24 and basically just starting college now that I can at least get enough loans from the government to afford community college tuition. I've had to work really shitty jobs for the last six years just to be able to pay for rent and food. (The rent they would have charged me to live at home was more expensive than my options for moving out.) If I lived somewhere like europe I'd be graduated and quite happy by now instead of really bitter.

brianchu 14y ago
You qualify for aid. If you're 24, you are now an independent student and parent income is no longer factored into the financial aid equation. You are basically low-income in a college's eyes. Education about financial aid goes a long way. Just because someone qualifies for aid but does not seek it does not prove my point wrong. http://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/699-fafsa-and-the-independent-student http://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/699-fafsa-and-...
- Crake 14y ago
  Wow, way to be a dick. I like how you also ignored the part where I said I had to wait six years for the aid WHICH I AM CURRENTLY NOW ON that you somehow think I'm still not familiar with due to laziness/stupidity.

lilsunnybee 14y ago

Isn't financial assistance for the non-wealthy generally intended to counteract class boundaries to getting a quality education? If you have wealthy parents, almost always you grew up wealthy and well-educated, and various assistance programs are just not intended for you. Yeah it sucks to accumulate $50,000 / year in debt to maintain your social class standing by attending prestigious universities, if your parents could care less, but why is it some rich kids birthright anyways to attend some wonderful school, when there are probably kids a lot more hardworking, driven, and coming up from adversity, that are more deserving?

snogglethorpe 14y ago
The point is that there isn't a perfect correlation between "unable to pay" and "covered by aid", despite the best intentions, so some of those people not getting aid are not wealthy at all (and they may be downright poor). People fall through the cracks, and that's a problem.