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.

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Comments

[dragonwolf]

I left a comment with my knowledge of gaining independent status. Hopefully it helps him.

I really don't like his mom. She kicked him out for being gay, fine (kind of; I don't agree, it's still points against her, but I kind of understand, she's standing by her convictions). Yet, she's still reaping the benefits of having him as a dependent (by claiming him on her tax return). Even if I agreed with her decision to kick him out, that's just low. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. It's almost like she's intentionally trying to make his life hard, first by kicking him out as a minor, then by holding back his financial autonomy by claiming him as a dependent. Even if I were Christian, I'd want to smack her. And her friends.

[dragonwolf]

Hmm...my comment was removed for some reason...

I hope it reached him and he considers the options I suggested, but it saddens (and to a lesser extent, irks) me that it has disappeared without so much as an acknowledgement.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*confused* Can't he apply for financial aid on the ground that his mom... like... kicked him out? Sure, if she's still claiming him as a dependent, that may turn out very unpretty for her, but considering that she kicked her own son out, I can't say I'd feel sorry...

[conuly]

It can be difficult, if not impossible to get financial aid under the age of 24 without your parents' permission if your parents are still alive. The assumption is that they're supporting you, even when they're plainly not, and you have to go through any number of hoops to prove otherwise, hoops which may include getting them to admit they're not taking care of you anymore.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Ok, so the system appears to function completely differently from how it works here. (I guess I shouldn't be surprised...) There are special financial aids available to students with parents unable to (sufficiently or fully) support them, whereas parents clearly capable of supporting their children but refusing to do so will either be forced to pay, or loose their child and tax benefits. Not to mention that if they're claiming those benefits while clearly not supporting you, they may find themselves on the wrong end of a fraud investigation...
And presumably the hoops would be on the parents' side, as in, they'd have to prove that they (e.g.) pay for the kid's flat and tuition fees. *scratches head*

[conuly]

Oh, she absolutely shouldn't be getting the tax benefits - but even if she's not, he'll have a real problem proving that she's not supporting him. It's not actually impossible, but it's difficult at best.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, which is why I'm surprised that she wouldn't have to prove that she is supporting him. Much easier that way round, if she were. I mean, she is claiming him as a dependent on her tax refounds. That's tax fraud right there, which the state should be extremely interested in, particularly if it's been going on for a while. And if Jeremy has been earning all the money for his flat and car himself (which should show on his bank statements?) and there's no money coming in from his mother (which should show on both their bank statements?)... things should be pretty clear, legally. Oh sure, she could claim that she's been mailing him cash money and generous clothing gifts all along. But if she can't prove that, either...?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

This. And someone should tell him, if they haven't.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Having dealt with a few related issues (none involving bigotry, just school and taxes), I think the situation is probably more like this:

She may have claimed him as a dependent for the year in which she kicked him out. You need to be providing half of an adult child's income in order to be able to claim them as a dependent on your taxes. If this is so, it will effect next year's financial aid, regardless of his current status.

However, being claimed as a dependent is basically irrelevant to the child. It is relevant to the parent's taxes, but irrelevant to the child's financial aid. Your college financial aid until you are 24 or 25 (something like that) years old in the US is based on the money you have plus the money your parents have unless:

you have a baby of your own
you marry
you were declared an emancipated minor (which is incredibly difficult to do, and is probably too late now)
you go through vastly complicated legal hoops that are essentially impossible for anyone to go through who doesn't have money

If your parents have money and are not willing to help you with college, for any reason, you have two options. Wait. Take out really, really bad and unfriendly loans with horrible interest rates.

Well, you also could marry or have a baby... marriage is probably the better of those two. Marriage could well be the most feasible option, except since he's gay, that becomes rather difficult ~too~. and a sham marriage is likely to be considered fraud by the government. I doubt they generally prosecute for that sort of thing, but it would be risky. And it'd be forcing a gay person to marry a woman, which is all sorts of wrong. And it sets up the need for a future divorce, which also costs money.

Yes, this system does suck. It hit my partner badly, and we had to wait until he was 25 (he has a September birthday, which is particularly problematic) before he could begin college. That didn't work out well for us.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it's theoretically possible that isn't the way it works. However, since that's the info you get from the schools and generally around, if there is a way around it, it's not generally findable.

But several young adults have been completely screwed out of an ability to go to college because their parents are unwilling to contribute. It doesn't even need to involve sexual orientation. Sometimes it's just a belief that once the kid turns 18, the parent is done. Sometimes it's a belief that kids don't need to go to college. And these are the people least likely to find a way around that. Certainly financial aid officers don't seem to offer solutions.

[conuly]

My understanding is that there *is* a way around this, but it's time-consuming, arduous, and not guaranteed to be successful. I have no idea what that process might be either.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Which means, that for most kids, there isn't a way :/

[leora.livejournal.com]

I suspect he misunderstood and isn't being claimed as a dependent on the taxes. Because I'm fairly sure it's irrelevant. He was probably told that he doesn't qualify for financial aid because his parents make too much money and he's a dependent and misunderstood. Even if she's not claiming him, he still can't get his financial aid evaluated separately from hers at his age. It's almost entirely a matter of age. The law assumes your parents will help you, whether or not they do. If they do not, you are in a horrible situation.

The idea behind it is that your parents might help you under the table, and they don't want that to happen. So, people with parents with money might qualify for better aid than they deserve. The problem is that parents aren't legally required to help their children at all, because a college education is seen as a luxury (the law is outdated at this point).

I fully believe that the kid is truly in an awful situation as this is about the third case of it I've heard of, and the first one was someone in my college, and the second was my partner. The first person took out hideous loans and must have owed a fortune when he graduated at terrible interest rates. My partner waited until he was 25 to go to college.

This is a regular problem, and it likely affects a lot of people. I'd love to see a solution. But I know of no good or certain solutions. The very complicated legal options would require a lawyer and would be very expensive, which is simply not an option to people who are in this position.

Personally, I'd like to see the law modified to either not expect parents to contribute to higher education and make it public the same way we do for 1st - 12th grade or make parents legally required to provide the amount of money to their kids that the financial aid statement declares is their share and refuses to cover for the child based on that finding. I prefer the former, because the latter might be very difficult for parents in some situations, but at least it wouldn't destroy a young adult's ability to get an education.

[conuly]

Pretty much.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I cut off contact with my parents at age 20 for my own safety and sanity. I had a couple of friends in the same boat. We all wound up similarly screwed when the financial aid office would not accept any of the documentation we provided proving we were not being supported by our parents or anyone else. I'm just now back in school, six years later and employed well enough that I can afford part-time tuition.

Yeah, it sucks.

[siderea]

This was all definitely true when I was in college (the first time), but I remember being told the system was reformed for exactly this sort of reason, and that now it is possible to get fin aid on one's own financial info if one can prove one isn't supported by one's parents. Is that not the case?

[siderea]

It doesn't even need to involve sexual orientation. Sometimes it's just a belief that once the kid turns 18, the parent is done. Sometimes it's a belief that kids don't need to go to college.

Divorce. Folks forget that the US divorce rate peaked at 50% in 1980. About a decade later, thousands of students started applying for finaid for college, who had a parent who wouldn't pay for college. Some of those students couldn't even get the alienated parent to fill out the finaid paperwork; and of the rest, the fact that they had one wealthy parent (typically male) who "could" afford it, even though he had never even paid owed child support, meant they were not eligible for finaid.

[leora.livejournal.com]

It could be. I hope so. It was a little under a decade ago when this was last relevant to me, so if it has changed, then I am quite pleased and I simply missed the update. I strongly believe it should be different, so I'd likeit if it is.

[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.

[siderea]

P.S. It also has this fascinating aside: "(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.)"

[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).)