financial aid question

[Imogen]

claudio, you're married. you are no longer required to claim your parents' income for financial aid.

yes, that was unrelated to the question in general, but i worked in admissions, and they would hit me if i didn't point this out.

[Claudio]

If only that were true for med school. Despite having lived financially independent of them for the last four years, I am required to submit my parents' tax and income information in order to be considered for financial aid in medical school. I have heard tell of applicants 30+ years old who still have to submit parental information.

So while you're right at the undergraduate level (and I really did love my Pell grants!), I am getting hosed right now.

[wired]

If med school is similar to law school, I believe that the individual school's need-based aid can take into account parent's standing if they so desire. However, Stafford and GradPLUS loans cannot take it into account. Thus, subsidized and lower-IR loans will still be available despite a parent's financial status.

As for the issue that was actually discussed, I feel bad for children whose parents move here illegally. However, I feel you have to deny them opportunities or their parents will continue to move here. Some set of illegal immigrants come here because they want their children to have better opportunities in life. If you give them those opportunities, it only encourages other people to immigrate illegally. Just my thoughts.

[NerdGirl]

I think this is a pretty awful situation for this girl to be in and I really don't know what the solution is to things like this. And I don't really like the attitude of "I worked hard to come here legally as an international student and it's not fair for people to come illegally" just because it I think it misses the point. I did come to the US legally as an international student, and it was incredibly hard and frustrating sometimes, but I'm also grateful for the fact that I didn't have the kind of life that was so difficult that illegal immigration actually seemed like a good option. But I do feel the need to point out that you do not have to go to an expensive school to get a good education. I applied to and got into Harvard as an undergrad, and there was no possible way that I could afford to go. But it wasn't a tragedy that I didn't go to Harvard. I went to a much less expensive school and probably got as a good of an education as I could have gotten anywhere, because BYU has a really good physics department. So maybe a good solution for her would be to start out at a community college and get a job.

And I also feel the need to point out that I find The Young Turks to be extremely annoying. This is why people think liberals are crazy!

[Marduk]

I think we need to get over our moral indignation for a second and think of the ramifications of either given action.

First, lets say we deny based on legal status. Is this going to dissuade immigrants from coming here (illlegally)? Not really. Even without an education, the options are simply better here than in Mexico. The parents take jobs that pay far less than minimum wage in the hopes that their children will eventually be able to make minimum wage.

Lets say we don't deny based on legal status. This not only improves the economic outlook for her, it improves it (albeit very, very slightly) by one person for the entire country/state. It makes her and her family less likely to commit crime, as it makes it less likely that they will be living below the poverty line. And it allows for the improvement of several other things in significant ways, not all of which I care to go into.

In short, I think we need to learn to swallow our pride and self-righteousness for a second to consider which is actually the most beneficial scenario for all involved.

[Imogen]

If only that were true for med school. Despite having lived financially independent of them for the last four years, I am required to submit my parents' tax and income information in order to be considered for financial aid in medical school. I have heard tell of applicants 30+ years old who still have to submit parental information.

So while you're right at the undergraduate level (and I really did love my Pell grants!), I am getting hosed right now.

that's....absurd...and i'm sure they do it so they don't have to give people financial aid. how cheap.


education level is one of the most important indicators in a person's likelihood to commit a crime, even as an infant. infants that can identify more words are less likely to commit crimes (i wish i could remember the study this came from. i learned it at a training about childhood brain development). so isn't better for us as a society to help someone break the cycle of poverty and ignorance and let her get the education that makes her more likely to be a productive member of society/could possibly motivate her to correct her legal status? if she's in her late teens/early twenties, she probably had no means to become a citizen, but if she gets her education and gets a job maybe she'll be able to afford it (since it ain't cheap)

[Giovanni Schwartz]

That's kind of a cool thing, Imogen. Although also unsurprising.

[wired]

Not that I am discouraging education or its effects on individuals or communities, it's not necessarily true that our economy or nation will be better off by educating everyone. Everyone becoming a PhD would surely be an over-investment in education. Also, it's not the case that a college degree is always worth the investment (See http://finance.yahoo.com/news/College-f ... 4.html?x=0)

And Imogen, I would be interested to see the study to which you referred. From your description, it seems like native intelligence (not necessarily education) may be a better term for that indicator.

lets say we deny based on legal status. Is this going to dissuade immigrants from coming here (illlegally)? Not really.

There's some ambiguity in your statement here. You say it won't "dissuade" immigrants. I agree it will not dissuade all (or even most) illegal immigration. However, it would certainly encourage illegal immigration less. It would also likely encourage a parent immigrating and then sending money back home, a common family situation already.

Lets say we don't deny based on legal status. This not only improves the economic outlook for her, it improves it (albeit very, very slightly) by one person for the entire country/state.

I don't disagree with you, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it. I would like to see a cost-benefit analysis that includes all of the taxes paid so she could go to school. I would also like to look at it across the entire spectrum as opposed to just a single individual; for instance, does educating all illegal immigrants children bring a net benefit or is the cost just too high. (And before anyone accuses me of being callous for using cost-benefit, this should almost always be considered. If cost were not a factor, we ought to just be subsidizing foreign countries education systems without limit. It is practically implausible to not consider how the cost of educating every illegal immigrant would factor in.)

that's....absurd...and i'm sure they do it so they don't have to give people financial aid. how cheap.

It is really annoying that grad schools deny needs-based funds because of parents' income, but I don't know think it is a matter of stinginess and I also don't know there is a better way. Schools usually have a set amount of their funds that they are willing to dole out. Even if they admitted all extremely poor students, the students would be ordered in terms of need and awarded appropriately. (From what I understand, some schools provide flexibility in the amount they spend, but there is always a cap.) They need some way to determine how that money is spent. While they could try to assess each individual based on other factors, parents income is a good proxy because it usually helps determine a students ability to re-pay. While some students don't receive help from their parents, many do. Just saying, "I swear, my parents won't help me pay for this!" is pretty easy to do and would be an easy way to defraud the school of money. The cost of policing an agreement not to accept parental money would be too high and, in many cases, the school's funding would just replace the parent's funding as opposed to supplement it.

Trust me, I know how bad this bites. I turned down admittance at a top 15 law school to go to one that would provide an academic scholarship because the higher ranked law school considered my parents' income for need-based aid. Not fun, but I can't think of a better way to do it.

[Imogen]

but wired, claudio is married. i think it's safe to infer a married man with a child(ren) is supporting himself and receiving no help from his parents, especially if he can prove it through bank statements and tax returns. he has established his own household at that point. if people in their 30s are being asked for their parent's income that is being cheap, regardless of the limits the school has in terms of funding. why not just say "we reward based on financial need, but have limited resources so the earlier you get your paperwork in the more likely you are to get money"? boom, problem solved. if you procrastinate, you don't get anything. that how my undergrad institution did it, so i made sure to have ALL my paperwork in within a week of the due date. they also did take into account the fact that my well-off father was a jerk and wouldn't help me pay for school because he hates my mom.

financial aid offices can be more flexible in terms of what they look at than they tend to be. i got lucky with the way my financial aid office was run, and if my college had a grad school, i'd go there again in a heartbeat because of how willing they were to work with students when parents didn't fill out forms (my jerk dad hardly ever filled his out), or when a parent lost a job mid-year.