How far would you go to get your child into college? Most parents start planning for college when the child is born. They might open up a savings account and set aside a little money every month to help ensure that their kid is ready to go once they grow up. It might also apply for scholarships and grants, depending on what their financial status is.
It was recently discovered, in light of the Hollywood college scandal, but many parents are willing to go really far to help get their kids into college and taper down a lot of the expenses that goes along with it. In fact, many parents are willing to divorce themselves from their children, which is what some wealthy families in Illinois have been doing to cut down on the cost of paying for their children’s education.
They make too much money for their kids to apply for certain scholarships and things like Pell grants. In order to get around that and the claim money, these parents were giving up legal guardianship and even transferring legal custody to other relatives. They did it so that they can claim they make substantially less money so they qualify for these grant programs.
By transferring custody, usually completed by the junior year of high school, the students then can claim that they are either financially independent or that their legal guardian doesn’t make a lot of money. One student was able to claim that they made only $4,200 from a summer job while she lived at home with her parents in a $1.2 million mansion. The student was able to rake in $47,000 in grants and scholarships.
Is It Legal or Is It Fraud?
Technically, this isn’t considered fraud. It’s not even illegal to do. What business is it of any college to question who the legal guardian is of any student? The students want to become financially independent or parents want to transfer custody, it’s really their right to do that from a legal standpoint. That doesn’t mean it’s an ethical thing to do.
“It’s a scam,” Andy Borst, the director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told ProPublica. “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.”
All it takes for a judge to agree to a transfer legal guardianship is when all parties agree. The new legal guardian, the parents, and the children will all get together and decide this is what they want to do. Any laws regarding this transfer guardianship are extremely broad, which doesn’t make it illegal to do in order to show your making less money.
After the Hollywood admissions scandal, these types of stories are seeing the limelight more and more. We’re beginning to see all the different ways that wealthy families are skirting the rules. These are the people who could most afford college tuition, they’re taking federal grant money from people who actually need it.
