Unbelievable.

[conuly]

By which I mean "outrageous" and not literally "unbelievable" - I believe this all too well.

Short version: This kid was kicked out by his mom for being gay, he's trying to stay in college but he has no money and can't apply for financial aid while he's still being claimed as a dependent by his mom, and he needs money to stay in school.

Donate, spread the word.

Comments

[siderea]

OK, I've been googling, and I've found one thing that changed in 2008, but it's disappointingly minor: "The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 to permit college financial aid administrators to to offer dependent students an unsubsidized Stafford loan without requiring the parents to file a FAFSA, provided that the financial aid administrator verifies that the parents have ended financial support and refuse to file the FAFSA. The unsubsidized Stafford loan is not based on financial need and its a loan, but at least it's something to help you pay for school."

From this page which has some good info mixed in with really creepy exhortations to suck up to abusive parents to get them to cooperate.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I really hate that page.

I also feel that part of the problem with the system is that it places a completely unreasonable amount of power in the hands of parents over those who are legally declared to be adults.

Generally they get neither the benefits of children (legal protections that try to ensure that their basic needs are met, which don't always work out, but in theory there are supposed to be legal resources for children when their parents aren't meeting their needs) nor the benefits of adults, independence and the ability to choose for oneself how to live one's life. Instead they are tied to parents who are given power with no check on it at all.

This works fine in many cases. I had no personal problems caused by it, because my parents were willing to go above and beyond to support me, and didn't try to use that support to pressure me in any problematic ways. But it also is horrible in many cases. I generally feel it magnifies the damage that bad childhoods create.

Plus, it creates the horrible dilemma if you're considering pressing charges against a parent for abuse. Not only might the case not succeed, but you may sabotage your own education in the process. That shouldn't need to be a consideration.

I've met people who seem truly unaware of what abuse can be like. Who say things like, "Sure, family members may fight sometimes, but they really love each other and want what's best." and seem to mean it from a life experience devoid of really bad things. And it makes me think that the people who created these laws were completely oblivious to what it could be like for some people.

*sighs* And I wonder why they changed it from the pre-1992 non-claiming for two years. It seems part of the general mentality of we must be extra-stringent when giving any form of aid to those in need because people are likely to abuse it vastly. When it often seems like the safeguards are overkill and they cause way too much harm with false negatives than they gain by weeding out false positives. (My general stance on the disability system, even though my personal experience with it was easy (sort of).)