Why doesn't FAFSA care where u live??

Paying for College
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<p>The niche that the financial aid situation totally ignores is that there are a lot of students who have parents who WON"T or CAN’T pay what they are asked to do so by formula, and it has NOTHING to do with the student who is stuck with those parents. </p>

<p>If you have parents who have saved their money carefully and lived frugally, to give you the best opportunities for college, lucky you. You are better off than those kids whose parents have lived high on the hog and refuse to even fill out the financial aid forms because they can’t be bothered to gather the records, are ashamed of the numbers because they know no aid is forthcoming and they don’t want to cut down and pay the money though under all measures they should be able to afford any college. Yeah, there are a lot of such families. Some outright refuse to fill out the FAFSA even though it means access for their student to get the Direct loans. They don’t want the kid or anyone to see their private financial info. My one cousin was quite pained to fill out the family info, and when she finally did, yes, the kid asked why they couldn’t afford his college, and there were some situations they did not want to share with him, private ones. </p>

<p>So the inherent unfairness is that an 18 year old who is considered independent for a lot of things, is considered dependent until age 24 (on a pure age basis) even if paying for all of own expenses and is IRS independent and stuck on the parent’s financials and if parents won’t release it or won’t pay what the colleges say they can pay, the kid is out of luck. For this specific thing going to a college willing to meet need, a kid with parents that have a very low EFC can have the financial option to go to a college with his way paid whereas the kid with a parent or parents who won’t or can’t pay is stuck.</p>

<p>Kid 1 comes in with EFC zero, low income family, no assets, but does very well in school and gets accepted to Harvard. Fin aid package makes it so kid can go there, with little need of anything from parents. </p>

<p>Kid 2 has a family with a 999999 EFC, parents have nice house, nice cars, nice life style, but no extra money after paying for commitments made when signing on for that lifestyle and they don’ t want it crimped. Have little in savings or maybe they do but they are not going to cash in their investments. They do not want to come up with Harvard’s $60K a year bill, say they can’t “afford” it. Kid can’t go. Harvard isn’t going to give them penny one of their money to help that kid even though he has no say, no responsibility for his parent’s decisions, life style and can’t do anything about it. That is not fair, and these top schools are LYING when they say no kid needs to worry about cost as an impediment when thinking about such schools If YOUR PARENTS can afford the school by the school’s formula, you are not going to get money from them even if it’s a full need met guaranteed school because all need is determined by your parent’s situation. </p>

<p>My close friend’s ex made over a half million a year. Refused to fill out any forms for school aid, He just laughed as he know the kids weren’t going to get anything from those schools that included his income and assets in the consideration. Go to FAFSA only schools, he said. And they did, getting PELL and state grants due to their mother not having much income. </p>

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<p>In the vast majority of cases, colleges do not meet full need . Even if all 18 year olds were independent for financial aid, it would not guarantee enough aid to attend all four year residential colleges. Simply put, $11,000 total Pell and direct loan just wouldn’t do that…</p>

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<p>You are making assumptions that 1) the family has always had a household income of $150k a year and 2) there have been no extraordinary expenses for e.g. medical or other emergencies. In general, we know very little about the financial details of any family, especially when relayed by the child. </p>

<p>Even assuming that the family was in fact earning that amount and could save 5% a year, that still wouldn’t necessarily be enough for college even for one child. Many families found that their college funds tanked along with the stock market. If there’s more than one child, many colleges might still be unaffordable.</p>

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<p>While it might seem it is disappearing, that homeowner is in fact still paying off money they owe the mortgage holder - reducing the principal and paying the interest. And they still own the home. It was an obligation they chose to commit to. I understand they didn’t expect to be in this situation but it was a risk they took. Sorry. </p>

<p>The OP stated that the parents paid $650K for the home now worth $800K - they are not upside down. That equity alone is enough for full pay, out of state tuition and room and board at one of my state’s flagship universities for four years! But they apparently choose not to tap into that - that’s fine, it’s their decision, but not a reason to expect other people (taxpayers or endowments) to make up the difference.</p>

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<p>Many who are upside down with their mortgages found themselves in that situation thanks to a corrupt, federally-backed mortgage system, which empowered people who could not afford to buy homes, when looking strictly at their income/expenses balance sheet, to buy those homes using the full faith and credit of the US government, also known as one’s neighbors’ tax dollars - and, to top it off. to buy those homes with little to no money down. Those who are dealing with the worst of this are those who tried to be wise and conservative, and put 20% or more down on the cheapest house in the best neighborhood they could afford, getting a mortgage payment that was well under the 33% housing budget number recommended by all the “experts.” I am one of those who, as it has turned out, was foolish enough to put down much more than 20%, and those of my neighbors who bought into the neighborhood for little to no money down, walked away back in 2008 or 2009, either by choice or by force, And why not? They had not put any of their own money at risk. And what penalty did they pay? Well, for a few years, their credit was trashed. Today? I know of some of those who are back at it again, getting federally-backed loans to buy their new houses. Me? I just keep paying my mortgage on a house valued by the market at half of what I paid. My 20% plus down - real cash, not fake paper equity - disappeared years ago. I could have paid in-state college tuition for all three of my kids for all four years with that money, but that’s life.</p>

<p>What the housing market just illustrates, though, is that when the feds get involved, things turn into a mess. College tuition would not have grown exponentially without the huge influx of easy to get federal money. The only good news, for the moment, is that people cannot just walk away from their student loans. When that law is changed - which I am sure it will, but as with all of the housing market programs (HARP, HAMP, etc), only a select few will be able to access the relief - even more hell will break loose as some students are freed from their obligations and others are left to pay for their now underwater college degrees (if we consider the return on investment of those student loans.)</p>

<p>So, best thing to do is learn from experience. I may be stuck with an underwater mortgage (it’s been six years now, and I expect at least another 6-10 years), but I can make sure my kids are not stuck with an underwater college degree. Merit aid is the only way around actually having to pay the inflated bubble prices. If my kids could not qualify for merit aid, then going the in-state public route is the only way to go. I won’t be taking on loans and working even harder to subsidize bubble prices.</p>

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<p>Sorry, but I fail to see the “unfairness” here. We, as a society, have deemed it the parent’s responsibility to support college for their kids. If this parent chose not to support his kid’s college choice, that’s on him, not us.</p>

<p>(If this was not the case, then every parent would ‘disown’ their 18-year-old for the purposes of college…) </p>

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<p>Even parents who are married sometimes say they won’t pay…regardless of their incomes, assets, and apparent ability to do so. </p>