Parents Are Giving Up Custody of Their Kids to Get Need-Based College Financial Aid

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Dozens of suburban Chicago families, perhaps many more, have been exploiting a legal loophole to win their children need-based college financial aid and scholarships they would not otherwise receive, court records and interviews show.

Coming months after the national “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, this tactic also appears to involve families attempting to gain an advantage in an increasingly competitive and expensive college admissions system.

Parents are giving up legal guardianship of their children during their junior or senior year in high school to someone else — a friend, aunt, cousin or grandparent. The guardianship status then allows the students to declare themselves financially independent of their families so they can qualify for federal, state and university aid, a ProPublica Illinois investigation found.

“It’s a scam,” said Andy Borst, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Wealthy families are manipulating the financial aid process to be eligible for financial aid they would not be otherwise eligible for. They are taking away opportunities from families that really need it.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-financial-aid-fafsa-parents-guardianship-children-students

[tblue37]

1. I hope this story goes viral. Affluent families also game the whole learning disabilities thing

to get their kids extra time on tests, especially college admissions tests like the ACT and SAT.

In fact I remember reading that some of the parents in the college admissions scam did that, too.

[lunasun]

2. Yes wealthiest suburbs surrounding Chicago have been mentioned with almost all using the 2 law

firms mentioned in the link (in Deerfield + Naperville) . Glad it was caught before it spread to more firms offering the wealthy to set this scam up for a fee

[fescuerescue]

5. Caught? More like publicized

Unless the law has been changed, this little loophole will now explode in its use.

[Bettie]

3. Of course they are

and here we sit, making too much to receive any federal aid (which is fine, we're in no sense affluent, but we're fairly middle class, as long as it no longer includes being ready for retirement or going on vacation, ever) working to ensure that our three kids can go to college without ending up crippled with debt.

[TeamPooka]

4. Those parents are setting great examples for the kids

[tirebiter]

6. Old news

It usually started with students not wanting to be hedged in by rules that defined them by their parents’ wealth. I saw this happening 40-50 years ago.

[mantis49]

7. This should be treated the way transferring wealth to avoid nursing home responsibility is treated.

In Illinois, if wealth is transferred within 5 years before admission to a nursing home in order to avoid paying for that care (thus trying to qualify for Medicaid), the state will deny Medicaid and pursue the transferred assets.