Reform FAFSA: Award Aid to Students Based on Financial Need
Did you know that independent students between the age of 18 to 24 are not eligible for financial aid? Force FAFSA to stop discriminating against young independent students.
The FAFSA needs to be reformed to stop excluding independent students in need of financial aid based on money their parents earn that the students themselves will never see.
I. The problems with Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
A. EFC works with an outdated family model based on parents with financial accountability to their children to the age of 24, when legally parents are not financially responsible for their children beyond the age of 18. This creates a 6-year gap (that accounts for the majority of college attendees) in which the student's parents are not responsible for his/her education or living expenses and he is also not eligible for financial aid.
B. EFC determines student need based on their parents' income without taking into consideration the parents' debts which can hinder them from affording tuition as well as from cosigning on student loans for their children.
C. FAFSA denies students because their parents are "expected" to pay their tuition, but doesn't monitor whether any such payment is ever actually made.
II. The FAFSA needs to abandon the archaic idea of a student's dependence on his parents within a nuclear family in favor of a more realistic one that focuses on and empowers the individual.
A. FAFSA should lower the age at which a student can file independently from 24 to 18.
B. Federal aid programs should protect their purchasing power by creating incentives in the form of tax exemptions for students who work to pay for a portion of their tuition. The FAFSA should include a section that determines whether and how much the student uses his own income to pay for tuition.
C. FAFSA should implement much more strict standards for awarding student loans. Student loans should only be awarded to students who show promise (in the form of high GPA and demonstrated interest in his field) of graduating with the means to pay them back, and there should be a mandatory course that students must take before entering a loan agreement designed to inform them of the facts about loan debt among college graduates.
We are not our parents. By denying us financial aid based on the income of people who some of us do not even relate to as family; people who have their own debts, priorities, and biases that make them unable or unwilling to fund our education- you are oppressing a growing group of Americans who are born from the middle class and die in debt and poverty. Invest in our futures, the future of the middle class, and the future of our country by awarding aid based on actual need and not some archaic idea of family that a staggering number of us have never experienced.
I. The problems with Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
A. EFC works with an outdated family model based on parents with financial accountability to their children to the age of 24, when legally parents are not financially responsible for their children beyond the age of 18. This creates a 6-year gap (that accounts for the majority of college attendees) in which the student's parents are not responsible for his/her education or living expenses and he is also not eligible for financial aid.
B. EFC determines student need based on their parents' income without taking into consideration the parents' debts which can hinder them from affording tuition as well as from cosigning on student loans for their children.
C. FAFSA denies students because their parents are "expected" to pay their tuition, but doesn't monitor whether any such payment is ever actually made.
II. The FAFSA needs to abandon the archaic idea of a student's dependence on his parents within a nuclear family in favor of a more realistic one that focuses on and empowers the individual.
A. FAFSA should lower the age at which a student can file independently from 24 to 18.
B. Federal aid programs should protect their purchasing power by creating incentives in the form of tax exemptions for students who work to pay for a portion of their tuition. The FAFSA should include a section that determines whether and how much the student uses his own income to pay for tuition.
C. FAFSA should implement much more strict standards for awarding student loans. Student loans should only be awarded to students who show promise (in the form of high GPA and demonstrated interest in his field) of graduating with the means to pay them back, and there should be a mandatory course that students must take before entering a loan agreement designed to inform them of the facts about loan debt among college graduates.
We are not our parents. By denying us financial aid based on the income of people who some of us do not even relate to as family; people who have their own debts, priorities, and biases that make them unable or unwilling to fund our education- you are oppressing a growing group of Americans who are born from the middle class and die in debt and poverty. Invest in our futures, the future of the middle class, and the future of our country by awarding aid based on actual need and not some archaic idea of family that a staggering number of us have never experienced.
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