Parent-swapping for financial aid
The Law of Unintended Consequences at work
I no longer give politicians credit for “good intentions.” Their concern is re-election. When they’re unable to arouse the passions of voters over cultural issues, they’ll bribe them.
That’s why federal and state politicians created grants to lower-income families for college tuition. Compassion had nothing to do with it, despite their claims. Politicians sought votes with the promise of free money.
I also hold politicians accountable to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Described by Rob Norton, it is that the “actions of people — and especially of government — always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended.”
So, despite what they say their “intentions” are, I say politicians are morally to blame if they:
- support a “short, quick” war but chaos ensues.
- prohibit drugs but violence and other crime rises.
- impose price controls resulting in shortages.
They should have known beforehand there would be disastrous results. I believe failure is, secretly, what they wanted all along; they’ll blame everyone but themselves for the new problems they created, and they’ll tell the voters, “Re-elect me, and we’ll fix this!”
There is one scam, however, that I doubt even the politicians intended.
Pro Publica and The Wall Street Journal (possible paywall) report that dozens of parents in suburban Chicago gave up legal guardianship of their junior- or senior-year high school children to make them eligible for college financial aid at private colleges or public universities such as the University of Illinois.
A relative or friend would assume guardianship of the youth, who would only have to report his or her own income on financial aid forms, not the income of the new guardian, nor of the parents.
What makes this a scam is that the children who had a new “guardian” still lived with and received support from their parents. But this is legal under Illinois state law; if the parents, child, and proposed guardian consent to the arrangement as in the “best interests” of the child, the judge is hard-pressed to deny it.
Many have noted this comes in the wake of what’s known as Operation Varsity Blues, but I don’t see how the two can be more different. Varsity Blues was about fraud, a crime, but there was no crime here. And, Varsity Blues is about super-rich parents bribing employees at elite universities to get their children admitted; this was about parents who felt they couldn’t even afford tuition.
After all, “owning” (paying mortgage on) a $500,000 to $1,000,000+ home in suburban Chicago certainly doesn’t make one rich, and even an income of $250,000 certainly doesn’t mean that college tuition for a child is chump change.
So the families did what what in their best financial interest under the law. And they didn’t write the law. I can’t fault them for doing what the law allows. On the other hand, deep down they knew the state and federal grants their children received were intended for much poorer families. Those were the families being bribed for votes.
But now that this has been exposed, expect upper-income suburbanites everywhere to be scapegoated for “stealing” from the poor. There’s isn’t a problem politicians won’t fix. Especially the ones they created.
James Leroy Wilson writes from Nebraska. He is the author of Ron Paul is a Nut (And So am I). Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. If you find his articles informative or entertaining, your support through Paypal helps keep him going. Permission to reprint is granted with attribution.
