Reform Financial Aid: Allow Students to file Independent without parent tax information

Everyone has the dream of being successful and achieving their dreams, owning a house, driving a nice car, but most of all having a successful career.

In today's time, education is the foundation to obtaining a decent job that will be able to excel your life to reaching the goals your 3rd grade teacher asked you to write about in a class assignment. College is extremely expensive and the majority of students who enter colleges and universities aren't affluent enough to pay off college without taking student loans out, therefore, there is something called financial aid.

Not all students who enter college receive support from their parents, nor do they live at home anymore. There are numerous students who may have estranged their parents or are not in contact with their parents anymore. Unfortunately, even in situations such as these colleges and the financial aid givers require prospective students to still file dependant of their parents.

I strongly disagree with the independent qualifications for receiving financial aid. I don't live at home or do my parents provide any support for me, but I am still asked to use their tax information. My father makes quite a bit of money and that affects my financial aid a lot in which I am responsible to pay on top of the bills in which I already am responsible for. FAFSA should really change the stipulations and make it more sensitive to those students under 24 who are not receiving a penny from their parents but who are forced to use that information for financial aid.

I believe it is discriminatory towards those who want to receive an education but cannot because they have to use their parent's information and therefore, must defer their education until later dates, or be forced to fork up the extra dough to pay school bills on top of their already high bills even though their income is not near what their parents is if you juxtapose both incomes.

We should let the government know that it is not fair and that it is inequitable, unequal, as well as unconstitutional because it denies us the right to receive fair financial aid. For financial aid consideration, federal regulations state you must meet one of the following requirements to be considered independent from your parents:

"-You have reached your 24th birthday before January
1st of the beginning of the academic year for which you are applying for financial aid.
-You will be working on a master’s or doctoral degree
-You are married.
-You have children who received more than half of their support from you.
-You have dependents (other than your children or spouse) that live with you and who will receive more than half of their support from you, now through June 30th of the end of the academic year for which you are applying for financial aid.
-You are an orphan or ward of the court (or were a ward of the court until age of 18).
-You are a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces.
If you do not meet any of the above criteria you are considered a dependent student."