Delayed adulthood — and the college financial aid process

Last updated on: March 1, 2015 at 10:12 pm by Jane the Actuary

Delayed adulthood — and the college financial aid process 2015-03-01T22:12:20-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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So yesterday I commented that a graduate student is automatically defined as an “independent” student and hence eligible for financial aid based solely on their own (presumably paltry) income and savings. This was not what I had remembered from the last time I looked at these regulations — and there were a couple other surprises as well.

Once upon a time — and this is going from memory — there was a true dependency test: if, for two years or more, you were living on your own, not supported by your parents (no rent money, no car, no car insurance), you were considered “independent.” That’s gone. Instead, there’s an age cut-off: you’re “independent” at age 24. Alternatively, you can be married (hmmm . . . a rare instance of a benefit to being married as opposed to a “marriage penalty”), or have a kid for whom you contribute 50%+ in support (so I guess dads paying child support “count” but possibly not a baby-mama living at home with her parents), or be a veteran.

What if you live apart from your parents but are under 24? Too bad, basically. If your parents don’t provide their financial information, except for extreme cases (parents are incarcerated, you literally can’t contact your parents, you were abused, or you are at least 21 and “homeless or at risk of being homeless” — and you can prove it), then “the most you would be able to get (depending on what the financial aid office at your college decides) would be a loan called an unsubsidized loan.”

This is brutal. Gobs of money for grad students — because there are no limits for grad student loans, and it’s my understanding they’re now also eligible for income-based repayment. But undergraduates? Everyone complains that they’re not taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, but these regulations certainly force college students into dependency much more so than their prior incarnation.

UPDATE: according to this third-party site,

Before 1992, one could become independent if the parents didn’t claim the student as an exemption on their tax returns for two years and the student provided evidence that he or she is self supporting. This is the old definition, and is no longer valid.

So I guess that shows my age.

This in itself is a very interesting page, though: if a parent refuses to pay for a kid’s education, or even refuses to fill out the financial aid form, the advice is basically to cajole the parents in any way possible, to ask the financial aid office to nag them as well, and to remind them that it’s their moral responsibility to do so. The unanswered question is this: how much cash are parents morally obliged to fork over?

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