Disclosing Income to Child ...

NikkiiL
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:17:42 +0000

sryrs,

I don’t think anyone is advocating just handing the reins completely over to the child. Thumper’s way of handling it allows the parents to ensure the forms are completed correctly yet also teach the child responsibility.

Tackling the FAFSA or Profile can be difficult for the average 17-18 year old but if all of the responsibility is being shouldered by the parent’s, when will the child learn to handle their own business affairs?

I have an advantage of seeing the aftermath of parents who coddled too much. As a Financial Aid Administrator at an institution with both a traditional program and an adult program, I see the results every day. I have 30+ year olds returning for their masters degrees who have to have their spouse handle their financial aid because, as one 42 year old told me today “my parent’s handled everything when I was an undergrad so I know nothing about the financial aid process”.

I also see the 30-something’s who are returning for their masters who are oblivious to financial aid and never realized they had student loans in their undergrad. When they receive their award letter and see a student loan, they call saying “I never needed loans for my undergrad, grants covered everything”, yet when I review their National Student Loan Database file, there were numerous student loans taken out in their name for their undergraduate degree.