Financial Aid for college shouldn't be based on parents wealth, amirite?

Yep. We are savers. My daughter worked for a year after high school to mature and save money. This year we can't claim her as a dependent on our taxes because she made too much money but she can't file her FAFSA as an independent person. Worst of all worlds.

by KeyBreath7231 1 week ago

I paid cash one class at a time lol

by Anonymous 1 week ago

That's so badass

by Anonymous 1 week ago

There is, but you typically need proof and a legitimate reason.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Can you have a poor family adopt you?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It's one of the weirdest systems. I understand tax rates or whatever base don your income (though this doesn't account for COL where you live, but I digress). But your parents aren't you. They are separate individuals. There is no guarantee you have access to their money.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Am I missing something? That link says you can be independent if your parents are incarcerated, if you can't find them, if they're abusive, or if you are at risk of being homeless.

by Top_Piano_2418 1 week ago

Financial aid is for people who really need it Tho yeah everyone really needs it

by kemmermaximilia 1 week ago

That's what OP is pointing out. Your parents having money doesn't mean that they'll be giving you that money. Let's use me as an example, since I'm about to start college. My mom doesn't work. My dad makes around $150,000. He also has 6 kids, most of whom are younger than me and still live with him. They also take several vacations each year, and all my siblings do some kind of sports. The expenses for food and clothes for 6 kids, mortgage, extracurriculars, vacations, and taxes takes that amount down quite a bit, resulting in him not contributing to my college. I understand that those are choices he makes, but that's the point. I'm not the one that chose to have 6 kids, or that chooses multiple international vacations each year. Yet, financial aid institutions don't take any of that into account. They just see that my dad makes $150,000 and assume that means he'll pay for my stuff. In reality, I'm getting no more financial help from my parents than someone whose household income is below the poverty line. I just have to work more and potentially take out more loans than those people

by Haunting_Anything 1 week ago

6 kids is still besides the point, $10k a year (conservative tuition estimate) is a lot of money even for someone who makes $150k a year. There's taxes, mortgage and all the other stuff you mentioned. No one can just cut a check for that much without it being a financial constraint unless you are a millionaire.

by Valuable_Ad 1 week ago

You might be surprised how many people live under their means while their kids are growing up and can pay five figures in tuition without loans or being close to a millionaire

by kemmermaximilia 1 week ago

Judging by the student debt crisis, no, I don't think we would be.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

College tuition went up thousands of percent over like 20 years, no one can out save that

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

I don't really think expecting parents to bankroll 200k of college is realistic

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Right?! My dad worked in a hotel, how is he going to budget and save 10 years of salary 🤣

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

An individual shouldn't have to punished for their parent's financial irresponsibility. That's why I support Universal Higher Education.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I'm not sure what your point is. Is five figures not a difficult amount for an average person to fork over?

by Valuable_Ad 1 week ago

Average?! Dude where

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

That was a sarcastic question. I just said it's a lot of money for almost everyone and he's responding as if it's just normal and what parents are supposed to do.

by Valuable_Ad 1 week ago

Yeah this means testing causes way more harm than good. So what if a rich kid gets to use it, you have no way of testing whether or not their parents still help them out and if they do, they probably paid plenty of taxes into the system to justify getting to benefit from it. But that's a much rarer situation than someone whose parents have a lot of wealth on paper but won't pay the kids tuition.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I agree my friend is from a middle-class family and graduated a couple years ago and has mad student loans. Her parents didn't help her at all, they are teachers they don't have the money to. But she also had good grades in school so I feel like it really should be based more on academics.

by akling 1 week ago

I'm not saying everyone doesn't deserve education, but realistically speaking if you don't have good grades, you're not even going to get into school, unless you're going to a community college

by akling 1 week ago

I agree, it can be very unfair to some students. They are generally going to be the ones paying off the student loans since they didn't qualify for any funding after including their parents income on their FAFSA. They can't opt to claim themselves and not include their parents income so they really have no choice.

by Cute_Win 1 week ago

Yeah I plan on funding most of the bill, but I was looking and the kids will receive basically zero financial aid and it got me thinking about kids who parents have assets but don't support the kids.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yeah this was a bit of a problem for me, I only have l one parent but he was making okay money, though most of it was being used to pay for bills all the kids, etc. He wasn't spending on anything for pleasure and it was living pay check to pay check. I was getting 0 support from him going to Uni. My financial aid got cut untill 4 years later I was considered independent and finally put in low income.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Couldn't agree more

by Coleloraine 1 week ago

The expected family contribution formula is a joke anyway. There's no way anyone can actually pay what it says you can.

by Mcglynnpatricia 1 week ago

Mine was 14k (in 2012) when my parents were in foreclosure and owed thousands in back taxes. Tell me where that number came from lmaoo

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

If you're living independently and your parents aren't helping you, then yes. It happen to me. My parents didn't help. I lived alone since literally the day I turned 18 because they kicked me out on my birthday. I worked hard and went to school later because I had to worry about paying rent and had no time for school. I went to school in my 20s because of this so it had been years since I even talked to my parents, let alone lived with them. For some reason this didn't matter. It sucked.

by External-Ad-7785 1 week ago

i agree but this will never happen cause the US relies on free college from the military to have an ample amount of troops which really sucks but i don't see that changing anytime soon

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I mainly make this argument as a middle class 30 year old whose kids will likely get zero financial aid since I'm a saver rather than a spender …because the assumption is that part of what you're saving is money to help pay for their college. You have the means to do so, and whether you choose to will impact your children's future. Need based financial aid is essential to help students from low income families. Students from high income families can afford college and hence don't qualify, but students from low income families need that extra support to cover anything their merit scholarships (which still exist btw) don't cover. Students in the middle can sometimes get screwed over I'll give you that: their families may make enough to not qualify for much if any aid when in reality they don't have the means to fully cover tuition. But the solution is not to do away with with need-based aid altogether. And asshole parents that just refuse to help pay for their kids' college have nothing to do with how important need based financial aid is and how it is structured.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I think you need to see how fasfa is done though. My parents estimated financial contribution was 14k and they were losing their house. It doesn't take into account debt/back taxes/liens all sorts of financial situations. They assume parents have literally no other expense and that every asset is going to be liquidated, that's crazy.

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

And on the flip side it was a huge help for me as the child of a single mom with two kids, and so many others out there. I won't deny that it can absolutely overestimate contributions, especially for homeowners, but we can't let perfect be the enemy of good. There's aspects that can be improved without doing away with it all together.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yes because people like you "beat it" by having no assets. That's not fair. It punishes people that work hard and own property, especially all us kids of blue collar workers who have nothing but are expected to come up with 80k since the own a 2 bed 2 bath.

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

We didn't take that money from you, and I dislike the implication that the families of kids that do qualify for aid somehow don't work hard. You can work yourself to the bone and still not have the finances to buy a house. "Have nothing"…by owning a house you absolutely do not have nothing. Maybe not enough to pay for college (and again I agree that there's aspects that should be reworked when it comes to financial aid), but calling it nothing is ridiculous.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Where did you live if you didn't own a home? How much do you think a blue collar family makes? Not a lot more than you. Why do you deserve more than others because you're a single mom?

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

That will just keep the rich above the poor. They will be able to get financial aid because of all the extra tutoring and resources they can afford as an example . Financial aid is for those who have no financial option for school. And if your parents are well off and they're not going to help file as an independent. But look out for the audit if you do that and then get aid from your parents

by richie44 1 week ago

"Financial aid is for those who have no financial option for school." And every individual after the age of 18 who's an independent is only financially dependent on themselves and what they have.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

College is a weird situation where you're a legal adult, but yet somehow you're still a child under your parents' authority and income. I'm 41 and in grad school. I'm married with 2 kids and I haven't lived at home since I was 18. I still had to check a box on my contact info forms on whether or not my dad could see my grades.

by Mcglynnpatricia 1 week ago

Basing it on academic record completely negates the fact that better off children have more access to better school districts and resources like tutors. I agree wholeheartedly it shouldn't be based on parents income but basing it off of academic record continues to disadvantage less advantaged kids.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I don' think there's any great way to do this. Academic record has a lot to do with a stable household or just having parents that care about it.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

In America, our owners penalize success, and reward failure....ever since 1914.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I feel like this isn't an unpopular opinion, I used to work in college admissions and there were so many people not happy with this. There were even parents who refused to fill out the FAFSA because they "didn't want their information in the system".

by Hhane 1 week ago

I wouldn't totally say this, but it's definitely a weird system. For example, I was just doing some pre-planning for my kid who won't be in college for years and found that if we put a bunch of cash into paying off our mortage early, that drastically reduces our tuition liability vs. if we leave it lying around in savings. I don't think it's fair to have it only be based on academic record either. College should just be highly affordable, period.

by Kira87 1 week ago

Yeah can totally agree that's the real answer

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Basing financial aid on academic record instead of finances means students who need the help the most won't get it

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Not really there are lots of smart poor kids, kind of insulting to say there aren't

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

I never said there weren't, but high performers are more likely to come from high earning households. Those kids need less financial help than lower income kids

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I got denied financial aid because I couldn't provide any information about my parents other than what was on my birth certificate.

by Kelley10 1 week ago

I get your position but basically if it wasn't based on the parent's wealth, then every single student would claim they weren't getting any support and the limited amount of available financial aid (since grants and such are not infinite) would go to millionaire families just as often as it did a kid living on the street. Does that sound fairer to you? Somebody with no money gets denied financial aid because it went to someone else whose parents fly on their private jet to the college to take him out to lunch on the weekend?

by Independent_Emu 1 week ago

I don't disagree with what you're saying.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I mean it would probably drive college costs down so they could keep operating

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

Huh? How do you figure that?

by Independent_Emu 1 week ago

Because with less aid people won't go, they'll lower cost. They can't depend on people getting tons of government backed loans like they currently do.

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

Making the aid not based on parent's income will not change the total available aid in any way. It will just distribute less to a larger number of people or distribute the same amount to the same # of people, just no longer in a way to helps the poor. In either case, the amount that the school receives total wouldn't change. If anything, if less people went to the school, costs would go UP, not down, because now a smaller # of people have to foot the bill for the same cost. It isn't like a school building is cheaper to build and maintain with 300 people in it instead of 450.

by Independent_Emu 1 week ago

The extra cost of college is nothing compared to the value of learning about proper financial literacy at home!

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Idk where you are but in my country middle class gets some financial aid, but not as much. In the application you can also choose to exclude your parents income, but your more likely to get less money that way.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

For fasfa you can't do that

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

Savers also save for college. This allows them to pay tuition. I say this as someone who can't get aid and who can't afford college. Also, what's the alternative? Income? Someone with a sizeable inheritance would be able to pay for college, even with an income that would usually qualify them from aid.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Fo really why is it like this crap

by Anonymous 1 week ago

i mean, i have to assume that this is from an american point of view? because at least here were i live, north italy, any discount on university taxes (or any service or welfare) is based in income, wealth, how many member in the family there are, the type of houses and cars and more....

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yes american where college is expensive. $10k a year tuition and 10k a year room/board easily.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

The burden of guilt for having parents able to carry my mediocre ass is admittedly way lighter than the burden of student loans, but in my mind there's no way to quantify the cutoff for aid. It's so complicated and arbitrary. Academic achievement can be stunted by poverty (which in itself is impossible to define clearly imo, and includes young people whose parents could but don't help, etc) for SO MANY reasons so I get why it's a thing but… I dunno, life is just a mess. I agree, offer everyone a chance.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

its stupid that roughly everyone needs financial aid in order to afford to go to college. It shouldn't be something that requires your parents to set up a savings account the minute you are born.

by VeterinarianOdd 1 week ago

Are we just talking about financial aid as in grants? Or are we including student loans too? Because student loans aren't designed to help kids get an education, they're designed to help the poor and middle class stay in debt.

by marcelinogoyett 1 week ago

I had a roommate in college who had to undergo legal emancipation because her dad was estranged and refused to pay anything, but FAFSA used his income to determine if she qualified for needs based aid. I fully support that college should only have performance based aid. If we are going to use tax payer money to pay for college for a kid that barely qualified for admission because they are poor, then there is no reason we don't just pay for everyone. I say this as someone who was poor and worked my butt off in high school to qualify for an almost full ride for undergrad. It isn't fair that poor people can barely qualify and get a full ride (depending on school choice), but that middle class families are expected to drain their savings and take out loans.

by consuelo27 1 week ago

Yep. Why I didn't go to college. They saw how much my dad made, didn't factor in he spent 60% of it at the bar.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I am old now, $50+, my parents have $10 mil cash, (plus many houses in so cal paid off) never helped me for college, given me maybe $50k over the last 30 years (house stuff, marriage, etc), which I am grateful for. I am not mad, but people should not assume a parent will just do it. I could have used some financial aid.

by wiegandelva 1 week ago

Bro you're spoiled

by richie44 1 week ago

Key word is should, what happens to the kids who don't get any help from parents even though they "should". I don't know this for a fact but I would bet a lot of the student loans debt out there is from kids who grew up middle class.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I don't know when you grew up. But if we're looking at your family in today's terms, 150k for a family of 6 is lower middle class for much of the USA. You certainly should have received more aid. But like many other middle class issues you wound up in the doughnut hole. Income too low to actually afford the expensive things like college, income too high to get much governmental help.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yes… ?that's what I'm saying and my whole point. I didn't grow up in today's world, I grew up when 150k was middle class and a lot of money and I still didn't get help when I needed it. It's even worse now. Don't really understand the point you're trying to make, it didn't really benefit the conversation. Have a good day!

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Just curious, are you still going to claim those college kids as dependents on your taxes?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Curious why you think that matters?

by Cute_Win 1 week ago

Because FAFSA paperwork takes the parents' money into account only when parent is still claiming said college-aged child as a dependent.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Okay, it's not a choice, it's the law. This is relevant how? It's still the reason OP's wealth is taken into account. Maybe you want to argue, but I don't.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It's relevant because you are spouting completely incorrect information and claiming "I'm just trying to help." False information is rarely helpful. You clearly DO want to argue because you can't just accept that YOU started off with a completely irrelevant question and doubled down on it.

by Cute_Win 1 week ago

How did I double down? I acknowledged it wasn't a choice, but the law. I merely asked how that changed the fact that that was why the OP's wealth was being taken into consideration. Still waiting on that answer...

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Your question wasn't relevant to begin with. My correcting you doesn't change anything, it still doesn't make your question relevant. But you have proven that you DO want to argue.

by Cute_Win 1 week ago

Yes and I'm saving for them in 529 accounts and plan to fund at least 75 percent of their college.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You asked about my situation which I explained, not sure how that's relevant. What I'm saying is what about the kids who's parents have money but aren't helping?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It doesn't matter. THAT is why it is unfair.

by Cute_Win 1 week ago

There is no parental income limit for FAFSA. If you're a saver nor a spender then save for your kids college. But yes if you have a ton of retirement or savings then they won't give your kids FAFSA because get this you're supposed to take care of your own kids. FAFSA was created for kids who have no other option not for kids who parents just don't want to pay. FAFSA wasn't created for the middle class.

by granthettie 1 week ago

Yes but the issue is college is virtually unaffordable for all of the middle class. No one has 80 - 200k laying around per child. It'd be one thing if college costs were reasonable but they aren't.

by ApplicationNo783 1 week ago

Yeah but with money usually come with the resources and knowledge to apply for scholarships. Probably can pay for tutoring to almost guarantee good grades and scholarships.

by Dapper-Comedian 1 week ago

"Probably can pay for tutoring to almost guarantee good grades and scholarships." Good grades are based on effort, time spent and knowledge obtained. Generally it's based on how much energy you spent learning the material, getting a tutor doesn't do anything for you, if your not committed to learning.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

SAT is so easy you don't really need a tutor if you just half paid attention in class. I made like a 1350 in middle school of all things doing a research report for an uni. Just grind some problems on Khan academy lmao

by Anonymous 1 week ago

No. ACT is just learning information. SAT requires you to learn perfect grammar or something never truly in. There is no formula or method just heuristics. I get straight As but taking the SAT class just let me score enough that people didn't think I was mentally handicapped.

by Dapper-Comedian 1 week ago

All I know is everyone in school whose good at Essays was better at the SAT. I'll spend half a week on an essay to get a B. Grammar doesn't make sense I just got better at guessing.

by Dapper-Comedian 1 week ago

Add "Why is education and intelligence gatekept by family wealth." to your arguement.

by Daughertybrando 1 week ago

I don't really feel like this is an unpopular opinion? Many, many people are struggling and need to either put off college or take predatory loans because of this expectation.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I think all aid being based on academic records is unfair. A lot of people struggled in HS for whatever reason, that doesn't mean they shouldn't go to college. I finished HS with like a 2.0 because of health reasons, I'm now working on my PhD. My FAFSA was the reason I could do that. I think there does need to be an option of FAFSA to prove your parents aren't supporting you.

by No-Payment 1 week ago

financial aid should be based on that person's academic record. Like a scholarship?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Who gets to decide whether a parent otherwise could pay? If a kid (adult) chooses to attend a school which costs more than a less expensive option, the student is responsible and should pay for that unless the parents choose to.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Probably what ever they would have gotten in grants if parents income not accounted for, which will be less then tuition. So max like 7-8k a year regardless of were they go.

by plueilwitz 1 week ago

You realize there already is aid based on academic records right? It's called a scholarship. I agree it shouldn't be based on parental wealth but Fafsa shouldn't be based on academic record either. Colleges when they consider accepting you don't just go off grades and test scores, so why should the federal aid you receive be based on that?

by Anonymous 1 week ago