Severing Custody for Financial Aid

[mnrose]

Yes, I'm aware that the rules for financial aid have changed considerably since I was in college in the 1970's. There's MUCH less available than there was back then. It was entirely possible back in my day to work full time in the summers and part time in the school year and easily pay tuition 100%. Throw in a grant or two, and voila, you've covered living expenses. Now, that is a pipe dream. The REAL issue is the cost of college. So long as it remains ridiculously expensive, and out of reach for most middle class families without taking loans, this problem of being "creative" is going to continue. There was much less reason to cheat the system back in my day simply because there were lots of ways for students to get an education that didn't involve massive loans to get there.

 

[NotUrsula]

Financial aid is 1/2 my job. I do this every day. There is more to it than just income but for the most part someone considered “poor” does in fact qualify. Why you didn’t qualify, I couldn’t tell you but I can promise you we have one child households that make more than $4300 a year and do qualify. Your own income could have been a problem, but I can’t say for sure.

Pell hasn’t been cut. It’s over $3000 a semester and a lot of students qualify. Most community college students in our area qualify for at least some Pell.

Actually, Pell funding has been cut many times over the years since it was established in 1975; in years when the pool is smaller, so are awards. However, as I'm sure you know, the maximum grant through the program has not at all kept pace with tuition costs, and the grant is almost never is enough to cover tuition any more, whereas before the Federal Aid Reforms of 1986 it usually was enough at a state school. That is an effective cut, regardless of the intent. (In my day the Pell fully covered my tuition, but I needed addition funds for things like books, lab fees and room/board; thus the loans, because what I could earn in work study wasn't enough. I made $2.10/hr and I was limited to 18 hours a week. When I moved off-campus my rent was $75/month and my utilities were about $15. That was in an era when rent in BTR averaged around $300 month for a 2-bdr unit.)

I'm not saying that I didn't quality for Federal Aid: I did, by a mile. However, every year I had to jump through serious hoops to prove that my application wasn't fraudulent, even then. I have no idea why we were never initially believed, but it happened every single year, and thirty years later the same thing happened to my niece, though my sister's situation wasn't nearly so dire as my mother's.

What I'm trying to point out here is that even if you are poor, you can be turned down, and if you don't understand the likelihood of a successful appeal or do not have access to records to support it, the next most likely option is try to make yourself eligible through other loopholes. Marriage is the most obvious of those.

 

[luvsJack]

Actually, Pell funding has been cut many times over the years since it was established in 1975; in years when the pool is smaller, so are awards. However, as I'm sure you know, the maximum grant through the program has not at all kept pace with tuition costs, and the grant is almost never is enough to cover tuition any more, whereas before the Federal Aid Reforms of 1986 it usually was enough at a state school. That is an effective cut, regardless of the intent. (In my day the Pell fully covered my tuition, but I needed addition funds for things like books, lab fees and room/board; thus the loans, because what I could earn in work study wasn't enough. I made $2.10/hr and I was limited to 18 hours a week. When I moved off-campus my rent was $75/month and my utilities were about $15. That was in an era when rent in BTR averaged around $300 month for a 2-bdr unit.)

I'm not saying that I didn't quality for Federal Aid: I did, by a mile. However, every year I had to jump through serious hoops to prove that my application wasn't fraudulent, even then. I have no idea why we were never initially believed, but it happened every single year, and thirty years later the same thing happened to my niece, though my sister's situation wasn't nearly so dire as my mother's.

What I'm trying to point out here is that even if you are poor, you can be turned down, and if you don't understand the likelihood of a successful appeal or do not have access to records to support it, the next most likely option is try to make yourself eligible through other loopholes. Marriage is the most obvious of those.

Were the hoops verification? Some people are picked every year for verification and it can be a pain. But honestly the only ones we ever have to not award that probably deserve are the ones that cannot produce the correct year tax forms or whose parents have filed incorrectly and won’t fix it.

We see it, not as Pell hasn’t kept up with tuition costs but as universities are out charging what financial aid can provide. For our school, it does more than cover the cost of tuition and books. Which is why so many students do their first two years in community colllege here.

 

[mrodgers]

You ex wife makes $12 an hour or your Dd? Unless there is other income listed and it is the Mom who makes that amount, she should qualify.
If it’s your Dd that makes that amount in addition to her Mom’s income, that is why she doesn’t. For whatever reason, dependent student income counts against them more.

Mom at the time made $12/hour. Daughter didn't start working until summer when she came to my work for summer help. She has 2 weeks left and has made enough to cover the community college tuition for the year, except she lives with her mother so spends most of it because that's how she was taught all her life.

 

[luvsJack]

Mom at the time made $12/hour. Daughter didn't start working until summer when she came to my work for summer help. She has 2 weeks left and has made enough to cover the community college tuition for the year, except she lives with her mother so spends most of it because that's how she was taught all her life.

Has your daughter talked to FA at her school?

My advise to students who expect to qualify and don’t is to go back over the FAFSA carefully. At that rate of pay something else is jamming her up. For some it’s those questions about how much money one has in the bank or in some kind of savings. I mean, I don’t suggest lying by any means but just being careful on the answers.

 

[wgeo]

My niece got caught up in this. She turned 18 one week into her senior year of high school and her parents kicked her out of the house. She lived on her own and paid her own rent/food etc for all of senior year. BUT her parents didn't kick her off their health insurance. She couldn't qualify as independant and had an incredibly hard time getting her parents to even fill out the FAFSA. Eventually they did and she got almost no aid whatsoever even though in reality she was paying for everything on her own.

 

[luvsJack]

My niece got caught up in this. She turned 18 one week into her senior year of high school and her parents kicked her out of the house. She lived on her own and paid her own rent/food etc for all of senior year. BUT her parents didn't kick her off their health insurance. She couldn't qualify as independant and had an incredibly hard time getting her parents to even fill out the FAFSA. Eventually they did and she got almost no aid whatsoever even though in reality she was paying for everything on her own.

We have definitely had more than a few students in this situation. Or parents that intentionally filed their taxes wrong and will not amend them. I feel so bad for those students.

 

[kdonnel]

The REAL issue is the cost of college.

The real issue is the cost of room, board, and fees.

My daughter is currently attending a college in the University System of Georgia.

Tuition maxes out at $2781 per semester. The Georgia HOPE program pays all of that tuition.

There are $1003 in fees per semester. An activity fee, athletic fee, health fee, international fee, parking fee, rec center fee, special institutional fee, sports and recreation parks fee, technology fee, transportation fee, and wellness fee.

The required meal plan is $1875 per semester.

The dorm is $8700 per year.

So $10009 per semester.

In the end tuition is only 27% of the per semester cost and that is covered by the state.

So even without having to pay tuition it costs $20,018 per year and that does not include books which run another $1000-$1500 per year.

If we lived closer to a University System of Georgia College she could live at home and commute. In that case our extra out of pocket would be $2006 per year plus books.

edited: fixed my math. I had doubled the cost of the dorm.

 

[wgeo]

The real issue is the cost of room, board, and fees.

My daughter is currently attending a college in the University System of Georgia.

Tuition maxes out at $2781 per semester. The Georgia HOPE program pays all of that tuition.

There are $1003 in fees per semester. An activity fee, athletic fee, health fee, international fee, parking fee, rec center fee, special institutional fee, sports and recreation parks fee, technology fee, transportation fee, and wellness fee.

The required meal plan is $1875 per semester.

The dorm is $8700 per semester.

So $14359 per semester.

In the end tuition is only 19% of the per semester cost and that is covered by the state.

So even without having to pay tuition it costs $23,156 per year and that does not include books which run another $1000-$1500 per year.

If we lived closer to a University System of Georgia College she could live at home and commute. In that case our extra out of pocket would be $2006 per year plus books.

8700 for the dorm for one semester? wow that is insane. No wonder so many kids live off campus, you could get an incredible apartment for that kind of money.

 

[aprilgail]

The real issue is the cost of room, board, and fees.

My daughter is currently attending a college in the University System of Georgia.

Tuition maxes out at $2781 per semester. The Georgia HOPE program pays all of that tuition.

There are $1003 in fees per semester. An activity fee, athletic fee, health fee, international fee, parking fee, rec center fee, special institutional fee, sports and recreation parks fee, technology fee, transportation fee, and wellness fee.

The required meal plan is $1875 per semester.

The dorm is $8700 per semester.

So $14359 per semester.

In the end tuition is only 19% of the per semester cost and that is covered by the state.

So even without having to pay tuition it costs $23,156 per year and that does not include books which run another $1000-$1500 per year.

If we lived closer to a University System of Georgia College she could live at home and commute. In that case our extra out of pocket would be $2006 per year plus books.

Have to say that meal plan is mega cheap! These are the meal plans at my daughters college-
Unlimited meals per week

Regular plans include $225 Dining Dollars and 10 Guest Passes → $4,120

• 17 meals per week
• Regular plans includes $200 Dining Dollars and 10 Guest Passes → $3,840

12 meals per week
Regular plans includes $165 Dining Dollars and 10 Guest Passes → $3,370


7 meals per week

• Regular plans includes $120 Dining Dollars and 10 Guest Passes → $2,260

Books are the cheapest part of college so far- first semester was less than 200 and the second less than 100. I had always heard horror stories about book costs so I was pleasantly surprised. Many of the professors give the class free codes to download the books or discounted codes. And our activity fees etc. are only about 400.00 for the whole year- but yet tuition still manages to be over 70,000 a year.

 

[aprilgail]

8700 for the dorm for one semester? wow that is insane. No wonder so many kids live off campus, you could get an incredible apartment for that kind of money.

That is a lot- my daughter is in Boston which is expensive and not even that much- she HAD to live on campus the first two years but now she moved off campus and is splitting a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment with 3 other kids for 4,400 a month, so 1100 each. She will sublet it in the summer for July and August and move back in Sept of 2020 for her final year. She absolutely hated her first year where she had to pay 4600 a semester to share a tiny dorm room and have a meal plan!

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

The real issue is the cost of room, board, and fees.

My daughter is currently attending a college in the University System of Georgia.

Tuition maxes out at $2781 per semester. The Georgia HOPE program pays all of that tuition.

There are $1003 in fees per semester. An activity fee, athletic fee, health fee, international fee, parking fee, rec center fee, special institutional fee, sports and recreation parks fee, technology fee, transportation fee, and wellness fee.

The required meal plan is $1875 per semester.

The dorm is $8700 per semester.

So $14359 per semester.

In the end tuition is only 19% of the per semester cost and that is covered by the state.

So even without having to pay tuition it costs $23,156 per year and that does not include books which run another $1000-$1500 per year.

If we lived closer to a University System of Georgia College she could live at home and commute. In that case our extra out of pocket would be $2006 per year plus books.

Agreed, I'm an employee of a state school. We get half tuition for our dependents. Everyone thinks that's great until they realize that's only approximately $5000 off the $31000 total per year. It's half TUITION, not half of everything and room and board cost way more than tuition does.

Not that I'm complaining, $5000 is better than nothing. It's just mind boggling how much a crummy dorm room costs.

 

[jrmasm]

PSU in state tuition for 2018-19 was $18,454 per year. Cost vary greatly by state.

 

[kdonnel]

8700 for the dorm for one semester? wow that is insane. No wonder so many kids live off campus, you could get an incredible apartment for that kind of money.

Off campus in an apartment is actually $180 more this year.

The dorm is $8700 for 10 months.

The off campus apartment is $8880 for 12 months.

 

[wgeo]

Off campus in an apartment is actually $180 more this year.

The dorm is $8700 for 10 months.

The off campus apartment is $8880 for 12 months.

Oh I'd read your original to say 8700 per semester, which in my mind was 5 months. It doesn't seem quite as extreme for a whole year. Still a lot though.

 

[NotUrsula]

Trust me when I say that public college tuition in the South tends to be MUCH lower than elsewhere in the country; sometimes even paying OOS tuition at a school in the South can be a bargain, depending on where you live. We paid OOS tuition for DS at a major school in Florida, and it was only $4100/year more expensive than in-state at our state flagship; tuition for in-state students was about $5K for 32 hours. Room/board was $8K for 10 months, which was marginally more expensive than it would have been here (room higher, food lower; tiny private bedroom in a 4-man suite). However, he was able to do without a car the entire time he was in school, which he would not have been able to do up here, so it was a wash. He finished school with $6K still in his college savings plan; enough to do a two-yr graduate program there now that he has residency.

DD12 is casting longing glances at a state school in Ohio where she has attended a summer athletic program for 2 years. This year, in-state tuition there is just under $15K; OOS is over twice that. (We've told her that there is no way that she will be going to school there; we have money saved for her, but not nearly enough for that kind of tuition bill.)

 

[Searc]

Off campus in an apartment is actually $180 more this year.

The dorm is $8700 for 10 months.

The off campus apartment is $8880 for 12 months.

$8700 for the year is a steal.

 

[NotUrsula]

My niece got caught up in this. She turned 18 one week into her senior year of high school and her parents kicked her out of the house. She lived on her own and paid her own rent/food etc for all of senior year. BUT her parents didn't kick her off their health insurance. She couldn't qualify as independant and had an incredibly hard time getting her parents to even fill out the FAFSA. Eventually they did and she got almost no aid whatsoever even though in reality she was paying for everything on her own.

It's kids like these who pay the price when affluent families cheat to get aid. People who are trying to better themselves and avoid being a long-term charge on society get kicked in the teeth because Trey and Bitsy are over-extended on 2 luxury cars and a McMansion.

I don't want to start a forbidden political discussion, but it never fails to amaze me that folks who will go on and on about how "I take care of my own, and the poor should, too, taxpayers shouldn't be paying for government handouts" are so often the same people who will move heaven and earth to tap some form of public aid for college costs. Because somehow higher education handouts are not handouts?