It is hard to qualify as an independent college student when seeking federal financial aid. I wrote about this big hurdle recently in this post:
Yesterday about four dozen students posted passionate comments on my blog after Chegg, the giant online source for textbook rentals, carried a post that I wrote earlier this year in its newsletter. I felt for many of the students because their parents make too little to help with college.
I must emphasize that if parents make little money, federal financial aid is always an option and often there’s state financial and assistance from the schools themselves available. As I’ve written countless times on my blog and book, The College Solution, price tags are meaningless! A $50,000 school might cost next to nothing for a student from a low-income or even middle-income family.
One of the comments that jumped out at me came from Allison, a college student, who chastised me for questioning why parents with good incomes would shirk their responsibility to help with their children’s college costs.
Here is what she wrote:
I don’t understand how you can label a parent with a good-paying job that does not contribute to college a bad one. It is an offensive thing to say. I am a senior in college, and my parents paid for my first two years of college (it was a community college). After that I was on my own, and I am going to grad school after I graduate. I have my own health insurance, my parents do not contribute (God forbid a parent save for retirement), and I am getting screwed by the government because I am not considered an independent student. However, I do not blame my parents, and I don’t think you have the right or the brainpower to either. Try to help someone next time you write an article.
I think what Allison is asking — in wanting to be declared an independent student – is for me and all other taxpayers to become her parents.
Here’s why: When students are declared independent, they can qualify for more financial aid since their parents’ income wouldn’t be considered in financial aid formulas.
As independents, these students could belly up to the federal food trough for more financial aid. One of the goodies they would get is a federal Pell Grant, which doesn’t have to be repaid. The indy kids could also receive state student aid, as well as money from the schools themselves.
Why in heaven’s name should this girl get more financial aid, as well as a better deal on federal student loans, just because her parents, who make a good salary, want to check out financially?
It was the parents’ decision to freeze out their daughter, but please leave me and all the other taxpayers out of it.