A new college aid admission scheme
Two recent investigations published by ProPublica and the Wall Street Journal showed that some parents are cheating the college admission system to make school more affordable.
According to the Investigative Journalism Organization, Propublica parents are transferring guardianship of their college-bound children to a friend or family member.
This will allow the student to declare themselves financial independent, making them eligible for need-based scholarships and grants.
In the latest two investigations, dozens of Illinois parents exploited a loophole in the law that allows them to transfer guardianship of their teenagers to somebody else in order to detach the kids from their families’ finances, reported by Quartz.
This allows them to qualify for thousands of dollars in federal, state, and university aid that they otherwise wouldn’t have been eligible for.
ProPublica said it has discovered more than 40 guardianship transfer cases in the Chicago area alone.
Parents involved in the scheme include lawyers, a doctor, school officials, insurance agents and real estate agents.
Students involved are high-achieving scholars, athletes and musicians who attend or have been accepted to a range of Universities.
College admission officials are being encouraged to scrutinize financial aid applications more closely and deny those applications from students cheating the system.
