Department Of Education 'Comes Out' On College Aid For Students Of Gay Parents

Recognize this community than to produce results in the form of college aid eligibility for students. Instead, students with parents who are not married will now have to report both parents incomes, decreasing their aid eligibility substantially. The announcement stated that the 2014-2015 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, will provide a new option for dependent applicants to describe their parents marital status as unmarried and both parents living together. Additionally, where appropriate, the new FAFSA form will also use terms like Parent 1 (father/mother/stepparent) and Parent 2 (father/mother/stepparent) instead of gender-specific terms like mother and father. All students should be able to apply for federal student aid within a system that incorporates their unique family dynamics, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. These changes will allow us to more precisely calculate federal student aid eligibility based on what a students whole family is able to contribute and ensure taxpayer dollars are better targeted toward those students who have the most need, as well as provide an inclusive form that reflects the diversity of American families. Yeah right. This statement isnt about fairness at all, it is about inclusiveness. Are we to believe that the Department of Education was genuinely concerned about not collecting all of the appropriate data to assess financial aid eligibility for kids with gay parents, as the Secretary suggests? Huh, what about all those kids who have two parents who are divorced or separated, and they only have to report the income of one parent? The FAFSA changes didnt affect those students family reporting requirements at all. And why does the statement by the department then go on at length trying to explain how few kids from gay families this will negatively impact? If these changes were truly about fair reporting of parents incomes for need-based financial aid eligibility they would have included language to collect the income of both parents for all kids, regardless if their parents are gay or not. Signs Of The Times: Race Is Out, Gay Is In These are interesting times. It wasnt that long ago that we had race riots in this country, followed by minority mandates in hiring. But that is history, and now race is on trial to be thrown out of college admissions decisions. 80% of the private colleges out there would have to close if they couldnt admit Asian students (Chinese specifically). Colleges need that high tuition revenue from full-paying students, and right now they happen to be of color, from foreign lands and coming in droves. Colleges cant survive without them. Race may have run its course, and now the focus is shifting to students of gay families. Kids from gay households will now get less college aid so that they have the ability to list two mothers or two fathers on the aid form. Meanwhile, the kids with divorced parents have to figure out which parents income should be listed on the aid form. It somehow always turns out to be the parent with the lower income. The result, in most of these scenarios, gay, straight or otherwise, is still more student loan debt that these kids will be shackled with for a long time. I guess you could call it inclusive indebtedness. If we dont let foreign kids into our colleges, it will drive prices up further and decrease diversity. So, while race is on trial, inclusiveness is being shown the red carpet, apparently, even if it costs a little more. It will be interesting to see if the LGBT community comes out and says that this change on the FAFSA is discriminatory. If the Dept of Ed is changing the aid form to collect the best information thats fine, but dont tell us its about fairness. Wait until some kid loses $20,000 a year in grants because his

parents are gay and he now has to report both of their incomes but the kid with divorced parents does not. Admittedly, if, up until these changes were announced, the Department of Education wasnt collecting information for financial aid purposes on the income of both parents for students whose parents are divorced or a same sex couple, then I guess students who have a mother and a father who remained married, have been paying more for college than everyone else. Students at Smith College recently presented 4000 signatures to the colleges administration pushing for transgender women to be admitted after one applicant was turned down because the admission application to the all-womens college had listed the applicant as a woman and that same applicants financial aid application (the FAFSA) showed the applicant as a male. Ive recently had parents from several families around the country contact me about the effectiveness of having their respective children, who will be attending the same college, do a quickie marriage so that the kids could apply for financial aid independent of their parents, all of whom had household incomes in excess of $380,000 per year. I dont respond to those