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| Their reporting may motivate the feds to act |
Which
some view as a problem in that there is only a limited amount of money
available with which to help lower-income families in need, and these students
of wealthier families theoretically are taking funds away from others who might
also need the money in order to pay for college.
ALTHOUGH
THE REALITY may well be that college has become so costly that just about
everybody thinks they’re amongst the financially needy who need help in
covering the cost of tuition bills.
I
suspect many of the families whose activity has been uncovered by the
ProPublica Illinois non-profit news organization think they’ve done nothing
illegal, and probably think they’re the ones who are being harassed for trying
to ensure that their children will have the opportunity to obtain a higher
education – thereby giving them a chance to succeed in life.
They
may also think that it’s not their fault they figured out a way to qualify for
more financial assistance.
What
the news organization, whose reports are being picked up by newspapers everywhere,
has found is that there are instances where parents deliberately turning their
teenaged children over to legal guardians.
WHO
THEN ACKNOWLEDGE they’re doing nothing to provide for the 16- to 17-year-olds
financial well-being. Which means that when the students fill out forms seeking
financial aid, they can claim to be indigent and in need of help in terms of
covering the entire cost of tuition.
Putting them in a much higher-priority
financial aid status than they’d be able to claim if they had to admit their
parents were still supporting their living expenses. Which isn’t technically
illegal – although University of Illinois admissions officials called a “scam”
because it alters the perception of who is indigent and who is not.
But I have to admit to sympathizing with
anyone who’s trying to deal with the cost of a college education in today’s day
and age. Personally, I don’t know how I’d be able to afford the cost if I were
having to deal with it now.
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| Is this the real problem? |
SO IT WILL be intriguing to see just how
this issue plays out in the arena of public perception. Will these parents
become some sort of equivalent to the actress Lori Loughlin – who now faces
criminal charges for allegedly paying bribes to college admissions officials in
order to get her children into the University of Southern California?
With several wealthier parents facing such
charges, but prosecutors seeming to focus their attention on Loughlin because
of her so-called celebrity status.
Or will this become a case of college
costs having grown far out of control – to the point where perhaps we need a
serious review of just what an education ought to cost and what it is worth.
Because maybe people wouldn’t be eager to “give
up” their children (theoretically, that is) if tuition hadn’t skyrocketed so
high that it’s a wonder anybody seriously thinks anyone is capable of paying a
tuition bill without some financial help.
WHICH, OF COURSE, then gets us into a conversation
into just what kind of help ought to be available. With some people touting the
ideologue argument that college isn’t for everybody – and that some ought to
set lower goals in life.
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| LOUGHLIN: No longer into noble causes |
That wouldn’t be such a cheesy argument to
make EXCEPT that it reeks too much of certain people arguing that the purpose
of colleges ought to be to weed out certain elements of our society from trying
to advance their lots in life through higher education.
An attitude that we need to advance beyond
for the good of our society.
Unless you’re of the sort who thinks there’s
some truth to the old gag about people who can’t get their way through college
by saying, “Somebody’s got to deliver pizzas.”
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