Imagine this: Unlimited access to higher education for your children at little to no cost to yourself.
That’s right. Easy, effortless. The catch? You’d have to give up, well, your children.
That’s exactly what dozens of suburban Chicago families have been doing. According to a new report by ProPublica Illinois, wealthy parents have been turning over guardianship of their teenagers to friends or relatives to secure them need-based financial aid and/or scholarships for which they would otherwise be ineligible.
Once their parents legally abandon them, the high school juniors and seniors are able to file as financial independents and qualify for federal, state, and university aid, according to the report. Parents are using this legal loophole to place their children in increasingly competitive and expensive schools.
“It’s a scam,” said Andy Borst, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “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.”
In the affluent suburb of Lake County, almost four dozen guardianships were transferred in the last 18 months. And at the University of Illinois, admissions counselors said they’ve identified 14 applicants who are financially independent: three who just finished their first year, and 11 more who plan to attend this fall. The investigation is ongoing, but so far, ProPublica Illinois has found more than 40 guardianship cases that fit this description between January 2018 and June 2019 in Lake County alone.
At a time when attending college isn’t just expected but demanded, scams like this will become more and more common. Just a few months ago, a number of celebrity parents were caught bribing universities to secure their children’s admissions. The question asked then is the same question worth asking now: Why?
Certainly, the rising cost of higher education, coupled with the selectivity of top schools, is making college less accessible. But at the same time, more and more high school seniors are being pushed toward college as the logical next step. Thus, college becomes more of an expensive rip-off, and parents turn around and rip off the system in return.
This isn’t a new concept: Parents have been manipulating the system for years, albeit in less dramatic ways. Under the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), families are encouraged to strategically position or shelter their assets to score federal aid. For example, some parents will make hefty mortgage payments on their homes and prepay various expenses (roof replacements are very popular) when their children are in high school. This makes them no less wealthy, but it might make their children eligible for more aid: cash is a reportable asset, but primary residences are exempt from FAFSA reporting.
In the end, these are scams not solutions. But a real, lasting solution would require colleges to drop their prices, and for society to change its mind about the necessity of higher education. If the Chicago suburbs are any indicator, parents aren’t going to sit around and wait.
—By Kaylee McGhee
