Must student see FAFSA?

Paying for College
41

Sometimes the parents take more loans than the student, and often times the parents carry the majority of the burden of paying for college, but this is all being done for the benefit of the student, which is why I say that the student is inherently involved in the process of applying for need-based aid.

You’re missing the context. Generally, a child of a parent who refuses to provide required financial information will not be eligible for need-based aid, and the child therefore stands to miss out on an education at a wide range of institutions that might otherwise have been affordable if need-based aid was available.

You’re mixing apples and oranges. Providing personal financial information to your tax preparer so that your tax return can be completed accurately and legally to your best advantage is completely different than working with your child to apply for need-based financial aid as you both seek a common benefit.

My view is that the process is all about the child and the child’s request for need-based financial aid as provided by government entities and the educational institutions themselves. I think that those who designed the systems (FAFSA and Profile) feel the same way. Look at the language used on both forms as financial information is requested. When student information is requested, the questions refer to “you” or “your.” When parent information is requested, the questions refer to “your parents.” It is contemplated that the student applying for aid will obtain and report all the requested information. The student is expected to be fully invested in the process. Does this always happen? No. Often times logistics and practicality dictate that a parent will take the lead in completing the forms. But there is no expectation on the part of the government or college financial aid offices that any of the requested information from a custodial parent should be deliberately concealed from the student.

A perfectly reasonable approach, and you can live by your ethos by not sharing your finances with your child, the government or a college financial aid department, just as you wouldn’t (I assume) engage in intimate activity in the company of your child, a government employee or a college financial aid person.

So provide the context with the financial numbers so they will be able to process things correctly. Teach them what they need to know to be financially responsible adults. That’s part of your job as a parent. Dealing with what can be the heavy financial burden of paying for college (their college) might be a really good place to start this discussion. Or, you can just stick your head in the sand and hope they figure it out down the road.

Ok, so sit them down and explain things to them. It’s not hard.

Obviously I don’t know your kids, but you may be selling them short as to what they can and cannot understand and process. I’m not suggesting that a parent go into every little detail and try to sort through all the complexities. My experience has been that kids (here meaning late teenage years) are often times much sharper than I think they are. Start with the big picture, and if your kid acts as if you’re treating him/her like a second grader, dive into things a little deeper.

42

yes, it may be a bit entitled, but also mostly being a naive kid. They don’t understand retirement needs or really any of the “big picture” of what parents have to prepare for.

I can understand why some parents wouldn’t want their kids seeing how much they have saved or invested.

43

I think this happens in many homes, particularly ones where the parents are not First Gen or have ESL concerns.

It’s kind of like the old days when people got paper paychecks. My mom would sign the backs of my dad’s checks and deposit them. I doubt the bank even knew my dad’s real signature. lol

44

OP - just as an aside, be aware that your child is going to need to give you permission to access their tuition bill. As noted upstream, colleges expect students to own the entire experience, regardless of who is footing the full, and they need to provide parental access to their account.

FWIW, we included our D in our family financial discussions and budgeting, starting from about middle school. We felt that fiscal responsibility was one of our teaching jobs as parents. Did D know every investment we had when she as younger? No, but we did talk to her about the importance of retirement saving and investing. She sat with us every year when we worked out our household budget, reviewed the previous years, etc… I vividly remember her shock when she was how much of the take home paycheck was taken up by taxes. :slight_smile:

IMO, there is a teachable opportunity in discussing family finances.

45

Actually I look at it as a great opportunity to educate your kid about finances and retirement. Ones education does not just take place in the classroom.

If they don’t understand “the retirement picture” explain it to them. These kids are taking AP Calc and AP economics, I think they can understand relatively simple concepts like compounded interest, dollar cost averaging, mortgage interest, pensions/social security payouts and the like.

46

This seems to be the right place to mention an apparently little-known provision of FERPA. If a student is claimed as a dependent by either parent for tax purposes, then either parent may have access to child’s records, even without student’s consent.

"If I am a parent of a college student, do I have the right to see my child’s education records, especially if I pay the bill?
As noted above, the rights under FERPA transfer from the parents to the student, once the student turns 18 years old or enters a postsecondary institution at any age. However, although the rights under FERPA have now transferred to the student, a school may disclose information from an “eligible student’s” education records to the parents of the student, without the student’s consent, if the student is a dependent for tax purposes. Neither the age of the student nor the parent’s status as a custodial parent is relevant. If a student is claimed as a dependent by either parent for tax purposes, then either parent may have access under this provision. (34 CFR §99.31(a)(8).) "

https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/pdf/ferpafaq.pdf

For example ASU’s policy:

“If you are their tax dependent, your parents may provide a copy of their most recent U.S. tax return to document your tax dependent status, along with a notarized Affidavit of Dependency (form available from the University Registrar’s Office), in order to view or obtain a copy of your records without your consent. Please note: We do not recommend this option - it is preferable that you maintain open lines of communication with your family about all aspects of your education, including your records and your grades.”

https://students.asu.edu/students-ferpa-faqs

Note that I don’t advocate taking this path either. I expect a dependent child to give permission to his or her parents to access all his or her records, especially if the parents pay the bill. But I think it is good to know that from a legal point of view a dependent child does not need to give permission to the parents for them to access information.

47

Agree!

I don’t know how many friends I’ve heard over the years tell me their parents taught them nothing about finances or saving for retirement. I don’t understand the logic behind letting them figure it out on their own.

Like the pp, I also started including DS in financial talks about middle school and has always had a pretty good idea where he stood with regards to how much money he’d have for college and why. He can handle calc, so he can handle knowing you need a LOT of money to live off of for 30+ years with inflation. He knows the importance of having a lot of money socked away too after a couple family emergencies where we were living off the reserves. He has his own job and his own budget and knows the account balance is not the “to spend” balance. He has to buy gas, he has to put aside 50% for school…

When it comes right down to it, he’ll probably be more practical than me about the college choice. I’ll be focused on how we can afford any of the choices and be happy with that, but I think he’ll more likely see a 10K difference between school A and school B as 10K that doesn’t need to be spent.

48

The important word here is may. The FERPA regulation cited states that:

*An educational agency or institution may disclose personally identifiable information from an education record of a student without the consent required by §99.30 if the disclosure meets one or more of the following conditions:

…

The disclosure is to parents, as defined in §99.3, of a dependent student, as defined in section 152 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.*

There is no requirement for a school to disclose to a requesting parent information of a student who is claimed by the parent as a tax dependent. The decision is one for each school to make either by school policy or on a case-by-case basis.

49

There are parents who do not want to share their financial information with their kids. It can be a major stumbling block for some kids trying to get financial aid. Their parents simply refuse to give the info needed to fill out FAFSA. It could be for privacy reasons, trust reasons, not filing taxes reasons, divorce process information , questionable information reasons, disorganization reasons, don’t want to bother reasons. I’ve personally known kids and parents who have been in that situation.

Though the law and college rules Are such that all of the financial aid info is supposed to go through the student with consent needed for parents to get access, Ive never in 20 years had any trouble accessing any of the information for my kids. However, it is prudent to understand how it is supposed to work because as a parent , you can get shut out—should get shut out without student permission.

50

A parent and the student both sign the FAFSA individually, and the student is liable for the accuracy as affirmed by her! If a parent outright “impersonates” the student (worse, by keeping the logon and process hidden away from them) then the parents are forging a signature, and on a federal “document”! Wonder how those parents feel, if the student had ever forged the parents’ signature on something comparably minor, such as report cards, etc… - or where the student may have learned such a cavelier attitude.

So I agree wholeheartedly with a previous reply - if you don’t agree with the process, then don’t participate at all.

Last year, my daughter actually wanted to be in control of her FAFSA, and her CSS profile - so she worked through everything on her own as far as possible, then walked in with her laptop for me to fill in the parent part. For one, it gave her the sense of having taken charge of her own affairs (including her own 1040 later). But it also meant she was stepping out of the “sheltered life” of a minor, and us having meaningful conversations about our family’s finances - where she IS the third adult!

THIS (sophomore) year, the novelty of being independent had leveled off. When she realized that it would actually save ME time to be able to just quickly run through it myself, she more than happily dropped it completely back in my lap (except I still forwarded to her at the end, so she could log in with her own FAFSA account, and sign.)

PS: I got her back, though, used HER credit card to pay the CollegeBoard fee :wink: