Fun fact, there's a loophole on this.

Get married.

I kid you not. I got married young (my choice, still together, love my wife, just for the record), and I was exempt from this. My jaw quite literally dropped because the year before I got married I had to pay full rate on school.

So, if you're planning on tying the knot but are waiting to finish school, don't. it might cost you less.

If financial aid helped everyone it should, it would just be called low- or no-tuition. But if schools admitted that, they would have to accept something they would rather not talk about: generous-sounding financial aid does not make jacking up tuition a victimless crime.

Why should financial aid help people who can afford to pay sticker?

Why should "sticker" be as outrageous as it is currently?

Why don’t I deserve a penthouse apartment in the centre of Dublin for €200 a month?

Because suppliers want money and demanders are willing to provide it to get what they want.

Yeah that's a pretty dumb argument. I'm talking about education which preferrably would not be subject to supply and demand forces as much as other markets.

If you want an education MOOCs, old textbooks and MIT OCW are cheap or free. If you want a degree that costs money because people want their stamped certificate of membership of the bourgeoisie.

Your talking to someone who has done very well for himself without a degree, not by choice. I couldn't afford community college in my day because I was unwilling to take on debt, while working 40 hours a week and living at home.

I don't believe that is a fair way to treat students though. You shouldn't have to get in debt up to your eyeballs to compete in the job market.

I was lucky I was naturally inquisitive and interested in learning all I could. Not everyone is though, and that's alright. If they learn better in a structured environment, I don't think that should preclude them from being educated.

The average Bachelor’s graduate in the US has $30,000 in debt on graduation, the price of a new car. That just isn’t that expensive for the magic piece of paper that gets you past HR. If you didn’t want to go into debt that’s fine but if you have a credible chance of graduating $30,000 over the course of a working life is not bad.

If you want a degree you can actually get a regionally accredited US one way cheaper, from Western Governors’ University or go even cheaper and munchkin transfer credit requirements and credit by examination like the people at https://www.degreeforum.net/

Or you can do like I did and fart about for years and go straight to getting a Master’s in Finance for ~£10,000 from CEFIMS by starting off studying Master’s modules as individual professional awards or in Software Engineering from Oxford more or less the same way.

https://www.cefims.ac.uk/programmes/ipa/

http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/study/apply.html

> Admission criteria Applications are invited from anyone with sufficient experience or proven ability in software, security, or data engineering. An appreciation of the challenges and practices facing professionals in the field is expected, together with an appropriate level of logical, mathematical, or analytical skills. A typical applicant will have at least two years' experience in a professional environment, and an undergraduate degree in a related subject. However, more extensive experience may compensate for a lack of formal qualifications

> unwilling to take on debt, while working 40 hours a week and living at home.

Does community college cost that much now?

I went to community college, lived at home and worked less than 40 hours a week without debt. I just checked and they charge about $800 per semester to county residents, which sounds even less than what I paid.

People find ways to say that about a lot of things, from housing to first-run movies. You'll have to do better than simple assertion to defend the claim that cash assistance for college should be universalized rather than means-tested.

Because education is good for society and should be encouraged.

Hopefully the Lambda School model largely does away with this problem.

There's sometimes other options available, but people who most need them don't necessarily know about them. And there's also a lot of predatory elements, like near-worthless diploma mills, that people have to know to avoid. It sounds like you did the best you could, under the circumstances (even back-and-forth didn't work).

I got turned down for financial aid that I needed for college (didn't even know I could try to appeal or argue it), and had to take a roundabout way to further education and credentials.

In my case, I was the eldest of six kids, my family couldn't help at all with college, I was already pretty much on my own, I didn't have anyone advising me, and apparently that part of the system didn't work right that time.

Thank goodness for community college, another part of the system, which I happened to hear of. Only ~$25 per credit hour (IIRC) while I worked in a store part-time. The community college had very dedicated instructors, and it also got me a lucky industry internship, with which I managed to support myself.

I wouldn't recommend the community college low-status route, iff you have the chance to go to an elite school, where further opportunity doors are not only opened, but you're practically carried through many doors. If you're not going to an elite magical door-opening college anyway, and you can't afford the 4-year college experience, then maybe it makes sense to do 2 years for a community college before transferring for 2 more years (find someone at the school you plan to transfer to, who will talk with you about that, and get something official about transferable credits, in writing).

(I eventually did get degrees from two fancy-pants schools, thanks in part to altruistic mentoring I was very lucky to receive. And also thanks to the willingness of the first fancy school to give me a chance.)

You need to go through process to be declared emancipated minor. You need to not be declared as a dependent on their taxes.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-loans/fafsa-gu...

Went through this process with my school and was continually denied. Had letters from relatives, a psychologist, and a school counselor and was not declared as a dependent on my dad's taxes throughout undergrad. I didn't live with or speak to my father for the entirety of undergrad and beyond...still didn't make a difference.

Grandparent is talking about a legal process, not letters from random folks.

There’s nothing about getting emancipated that legally obligates schools to care.

Federally, it helps and a lot of financial aid comes from the federal government.

>> fathers income HAD to be included in my application even though he didn't contribute anything to me and my mother was on disability, they were divorced and I hadn't seem him in years.

I don't know how that works in US, but in my country you can sue your parent for child support payments until you reach the age of 26, if you are still in college. I mean: you sue them on your own behalf, since you're adult, the other parent does not need to participate.

Which country? I absolutely would've tried to use this option if I had known it existed/if it was available.

The United States. https://www.yahoo.com/news/21-year-old-sues-parents-for-coll...

There is a process to declare that a parent isn't helping out financially but it's a little confusing. My grandmother knew about it because she's a lawyer, but there are also financial aid experts to help people navigate this system. You have to fill out some forms and get some people to sign some documents under oath that your dad isn't contributing.

> Are you still required to combine both parents income (even if they're divorced and you're estranged from one or both of them) before you qualify?

If either of them claim you as a dependent, then yes.

IIRC not tax/dependency status; in order to be free from parents’ income you need to be above 24, emancipated from your parents, a ward of the court, etc..

source: https://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/federal-finan...

These criteria are really shitty for some people. My middle class parents spoiled me and paid for the entirety of my college tuition and expenses, but I had friends from families with similar income whose parents completely refused to pay for any college expenses, and they had to survive on whatever scholarships and student loans they could get, but couldn't get any FAFSA aid. I'm not sure what the alternative is, and I'm sure they were more privileged than many/most of the people who do qualify for FAFSA aid, but it still felt really unfair to me.

I guess they should've gotten sham marriages to qualify as independent? (Why is marriage a qualifying criterion for independence? Seems really antiquated to me...)

Or married, I think.

Married, yes.

Veteran also works -- I qualified not to include my parent's income. But the $10k I made the year before put be above the threshold for a household of one. I think I got a state $500/year and that was it. Everything else was loans.

It was a perverse position I was in during the 6 months between military service and returning to college. Any money I saved during that time was considered to be 100% applicable to that next year of college. So I basically had to deplete all savings before any aid or even loans were allowed to kick in.

Incidentally, the GI Bill, which is often advertised as $xxx per month is pro-rated to the day.

Are you saying that one divorced parent claiming me as dependent means that both of their incomes are automatically combined when applying, or that both likely claimed me as a dependent?

I haven't been aware of where my father is since I was a teenager, so it's entirely possible that he was in fact claiming me still. The fact that that disqualified me from any assistance is pretty sad. I'm very lucky to be where I am right now.

I recall us explaining this to admissions but there being no budge at all.

Your situation really sucked. However the reason that is that way is because the schools want to avoid financial aid fraud: a rich dad is “out of the picture” when in fact he isn’t — people use that strategy to get more financial aid. In your case, it was horrible. Getting classified as an independent student under the age of 24 is very difficult; it depends on the school’s financial aid administrator. Only .9% of students got an override. However, being married, a veteran, having legal dependents, or being an orphan are the only automatic ways to be considered independent for the FAFSA. If that were my situation, I would have joined the National Guard for two years: that makes you independent and gets you additional money from the GI Bill. However, that’s not for everyone.

I’m sorry you had that situation. In your case, it was clearly unfair.

I saw that there is the ability for an Admissions person to do an override in a link posted in this thread, I was curious how often it was done as it wasn't recommended to me at all. So that makes sense.

I was very close to joining the USMC/Army to deal with all of this. USCG/USAF (admittedly didn't try USNG) and everyone else were "full" back then if I didn't have a Bachelors. I graduated right after 9/11..