My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

So I tried briefly researching this on FAFSA, but apparantly they don't consider parents to be scumbags frequently enough to post it anywhere I saw....

My girlfriend currently is finishing up her last semester at a JuCo for an Associates Degree. She wants to go to a university starting next fall but does not have the money to do so as of now. She is willing to get loans....However...

Her parents are thus far refusing to give her any of their financial income information to do the applications. They make really good money so she probably won't get FAFSA, but she still needs this info for potential loans. She lives with them, is a dependent of them, and yet they are being total scumbags.

What is her play here? I'm guessing that the first thing is to talk to the school's financial aid office for help. I was wondering if anyone had any insight into this pathetic situation....

She really needs to get out from under their thumb because they are pretty much terrible parents....Seriously, who refuses to give their kid a chance at a student loan and what not....

I'm aware this is slightly gapped in explanation so I can answer other stuff...but I'm looking for guidance from you guys.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

until she moves out, she's gonna have to put up with the crap.

" talk to the school's financial aid office for help"
yes.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Is she hot?

If she is, she could find a boyfriend who will pay for it all; unlike a poker playing loser like you!!!

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Is she hot?

If she is, she could find a boyfriend who will pay for it all; unlike a poker playing loser like you!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes...and....thanks for your entirely useless post.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

My parents were hesitant at first to give up this information too. I think there's a good chance they are doing it out of privacy concerns or tax reasons or something and not that they are trying to be scumbags.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Is she hot?

If she is, she could find a boyfriend who will pay for it all; unlike a poker playing loser like you!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Why are you here?

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Your girlfriend might want to consider state schools.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

She's probably not going to get loans from the school. Even loans are considered on a need basis.

I know someone who actually went to college with me for freshmen year, and then her parents were like "yeah, we're not paying anymore", randomly, kinda for no reason (or so she told me).

She worked for a year, and eventually declared herself independant from them. At that point she's her own entity or whatever and her parents dont matter.

How old is she? If she's 21, she can probably just get herself to not be a dependant. Financial aid probably knows how to do that.

Also, this better be for next fall. You want to apply for financial aid as soon as possible, because they just run out of it in some cases.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

It is definitely for next fall. Priority filing is in March, so she has a couple months. She is not 21 until February.

I should note that her parents are being scumbags about this. They kind of are about a few things. It is definitely a rocky household sometimes...

While some of it may be privacy reasons...it is most likely just them being tools mostly...

She won't be able to declare for independent until the following year but she plans to after that.

It is Illinois State University...why does the state school thing matter TDB?

I thank you guys so far...hopefully I can gather more insight before eventually going with her to the financial aid reps here.

Also, I really don't get what a person is supposed to do in this situation. If your parents refuse to fund your education (which I have serious problems with if the offspring is serious about schooling) but are rich, how do they expect these people to go to school without taking a year or two off?


My old boss said something about some law that you can like FORCE your parents to pay for your schooling if they are determined to be able to afford it. He is a really smart guy, my old boss, so I took it seriously...but it seems unrealistic. Anyone know about that?

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

I had to go through something JUST like this. It was [censored] rediculus. The parents had just recieved a large sum of money as an inheritance. They would talk about buying new snow mobiles and half way through the same sentence tell their daughter that they couldnt help her with money. There was one time even when she was sick with strep throat for a week and couldnt afford to see a doctor and the parents wouldnt help her out. It was such [censored]. ANYWAYS, we finally got the FAFSA stuff from her parents, and she got approved for Fed loans of get this.... 5K!!!! [censored] 5 grand for the whole year. The fed EXPECTS parents to contribute. but they wouldnt.

I even called the school for her, to ask what could be done. get this, they told me in order to help her, she'd have to get pregnant!!!! WTF?

The only thing she can do is apply for private loans or wait till shes 23. (i think its 23, it might be 25.) systems [censored], sorry.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

[ QUOTE ]
until she moves out, she's gonna have to put up with the crap.

" talk to the school's financial aid office for help"
yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

you have to wait even longer than that. unfortunately.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Solo,

If she isn't considered a dependent, then there has to be a way for her to get the financial aid she needs regardless of her parents' income. If she's over 18, there has to be a way for her to not be a dependent right? There are plenty of independent 18 years olds out there.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

yes, she needs to declare independent status and move out.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Right well that is the problem. She doesn't think she can move out on her own and claim independence because she has SOME money but not a ton. And even working through the fall won't necessarily make that easy...

It is funny. Her parents provide for her mostly. She pays her cell phone bill and maybe (I think) her insurance for her car. But beyond that her parents provide for her entirely. However, they do so in a way that keeps her under their thumb. For example, they wouldn't let her buy her own car with money she had. They said if she did that they would stop providing X for here (where X was a bunch of stuff)....So basically they have her under their thumb.

xwill, Very similar situation. However, they won't even give her the INFO about their taxes and stuff. You can't even APPLY for aid without that information. So that is my main concern to get a fix for....

t0ne, She still lives with her parents and will continue to do so until next summer (when she moves down here). This makes her listed as an independent. like xwill said, the FAFSA/loans places expect that most parents are normal and will at least help their kid figure stuff out. Her parents, on the other hand, insist on hindering her....

Drewdevil, I have tried telling her this many times. I wish nothing more than for her to do so. In fact, my mother has said that she could live at our house (since I'm at school basically full time) and then declare herself independent. My girlfriend won't do it becuase she doesn't think it would work and that she "isn't strong enough for that right now" and what not....

So with all that information added....what do you now think? Just in general even....

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

I have some experience in this area. I'm very sure you have to be 24 years old to declare independent status unless you were removed from your parents custody (ie: court order, abuse, neglect). Even then you have to apply for independent status, it is not given to you.

http://www.fafsa.org/otheraid/parentsrefuse.phtml

I skimmed through it, and it's really no help. The government just doesn't look at this as a realistic scenario even though it happens more than it should.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

[ QUOTE ]
It is Illinois State University...why does the state school thing matter TDB?

[/ QUOTE ]
it's a lot easier to get a $7000 loan than a $20,000 loan, and being $30,000 in debt after 4 years of college is pretty standard where I'm from.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Amval, thank you very much for the link. I looked for at least 20 minutes for this type of thing and couldn't find it...Still reading it now..My favorite so far...

"If your parents refuse to file the forms because they haven't filed a tax return or owe taxes, there isn't anything you can do. The federal government doesn't provide financial aid to families of tax evaders and tax protesters. If you have evidence of your parents tax evasion, you could consider turning them in to the IRS, since the IRS does provide a reward for such information. (If your parents are sufficiently wealthy, the reward could pay for your education!)"

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Well that helps a little bit...but basically it says that she is [censored] for 3 years if she can't convince them to at least let her file FAFSA to get the unsubsidized loan. I'm guessing getting a student loan from elsewhere would not only be expensive, but very troublesome without her parents info...

This is still sucking..but thanks to you guys I feel like it is more doable.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Solo,

This situation sounds a lot like a friend of mine in high school. He ended up going completely independent. He had to work his ass off all through school, but he made it work. It's definitely a sucky situation.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

isn't it really hard to go independent? i'm pretty sure you have to be able to claim financial independence for something like 2-3 years; it sucks, but they do this to keep otherwise able families from saying their kids are independent so they don't have to pay for college

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

I think you're right Big Poppa Smurf. From what I read you have to be 23 and it is automatic. Other than that you have to talk to your school's fin. aid advisor and get exempt or something. My girlfriend could never get one.

Basically it looks like we're going to have to convince her parents to get online and submit the information with the online application. At least that way they don't have to let her know what their info is....(even though we could just look at it later...but still)...

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

My girlfriend (now wife) was in the same situation 20 years ago. There wan't much you could do then or now. She never finished college.

Probably the best and riskiest answer is to get other members of her family involved (grandparents, aunts and uncles).

Make it clear to them that she isn't asking them for money, she just needs some stupid forms filled out by her parents, so that she can get loans. Have her ask them to talk to her parents. Peer pressure is an amazing thing.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

I was actually in this same situation last year. My father died when I was two and I lost contact with my mother around 2 years ago. Obviously I couldn’t file for FAFSA because my mother was not around so I had to withdraw from school as I couldn’t possibly afford it on my own. I hired a lawyer and went to court in an effort to be declared an emancipated minor. I found this to be odd because I thought you were declared this when you became 18 but apparently not for cases such as this. There really was no precedent on such a thing so I basically just had to tell the judge my story and she declared me independent. Because of this I was able to get federal aid for schooling but I still was unable to receive state aid because they basically don’t “accept” the ruling.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

ace, that story is pretty bad. that is unfortunate. and here people think it is just our primary and secondary education that has problems...

This is pretty lame overall.

As an update: My girlfriend now thinks that she is going to move down here to live with me but possibly not take any classes and work fulltime. Chalk up another one for our government I guess.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Best solution is to steal their tax documents making copies (you will need these if you actually get FA for verification) and fill it out with those yourself forging all signatures. Illegal yes, but prob of being caught is very low and since the information is all true anyway, you probably wouldn't get much of a penalty if you explained the truth. If they are evading taxes and are that worthless anyway I would turn them in.
FWIW I was in the opposite situation - my mom wanted to claim me as dependent but couldn't due to a change in tax laws made just last year.

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

Tell them to get off of their high horses, and give up their info. there are a ton of wealthier people than them who have given up their income #'s for their students. They shouldn't flatter themselves by thinking their income numbers are so important that they can't write down the [censored] bracket they fall into for their daughter's education

Re: My GF\'s parents are scumbags thus far (Fin. Aid)
 

To be independent you have to:

Be 24 or older
Have Graduated with a 4 year degree
Have served in the Military
Be an orphan or ward of the court
Be married

However, if any of the above are met she'll lose health insurance if she's on her parents plan. Most state schools can be enrolled in for less than $10k a year, just tell her to get a job. If she lvied on her own loans or not she'd need a job anyway.