<p>do UCs check if you are infact living off campus? how do they do that? have you ever been ask to verify? if so, what method did you use?</p>
<p>You mean like if the student were suspected of defrauding the state and univ by claiming off campus residence for more financial aid, when he was really living at home?</p>
<p>They would just ask you. “Where do you live? Do you mind showing us around, we just want to verify your residence? It’s routine. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.”</p>
<p>Or they might ask your parents the same thing.</p>
<p>Or it would be simple enough to follow you after class to see where you go. They have your class schedule. They have your local address that you are claiming.</p>
<p>If someone tried to pull off this fraud, he would have to be careful to not have any friends the whole time he was in college, especially romantic friends. In the case of a break up, ex-girlfriends or boyfriends will often try to get even by ratting out their ex to the authorities for something like this.</p>
<p>So the question really is: can one defraud the university and get undeserved financial aid by perjuring yourself on your financial aid application?</p>
<p>Sure. You can also rob a bank or stick up a liquor store.</p>
<p>If you are enrolled at a college or university and you are living on campus…that school would be BILLING YOU for your on campus housing. That is as far as they would have to look. If they are not billing you for on campus housing and you are attending…then clearly you are living off campus. This is the easiest possible thing for the colleges to find out…just check with student accounts. I don’t think there is ANY way you can pretend you are “living on campus” when you are not.</p>
<p>thumper-</p>
<p>OP’s meant to ask, I think:</p>
<p>Can I live at home and claim to be living ‘off campus’ in order to increase financial aid, without getting caught?</p>
<p>Obviously, the school will know if you’re living on campus, and since off campus housing estimates are less expensive than UC’s on-campus housing estimates (I believe), there isn’t any advantage to living on campus and claiming off-campus status.</p>
<p>sblake…on the fafsa, for housing the options are on campus and off campus. Home is not a choice on the FAFSA. Perhaps the OP can clarify his/her question.</p>
<p>i, personally, am not doing this because i don’t even qualify for aid but i was wondering because a friend told me that he is going to claim that he are living off-campus but really stay home to get money to funnel back and reject the loans they make you take. his plan sounds viable. claiming to live with parents gives = 16k. claiming to live off-campus gives = 22k.</p>
<p>that would be an 8k surplus he’ll be offered.</p>
<p>how would colleges find out that he’s lying?</p>
<p>Thumper, look again. There are three options on the fafsa, on campus, off campus and with parent. It’s in Step 6, where you pick the schools.</p>
<p>Here’s a link:
<a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/fafsa/attachments/0607FAFSAApplication(eng)100605.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/fafsa/attachments/0607FAFSAApplication(eng)100605.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yeah-- UCLA has three levels of aid in their packages-- one for ‘at home’ one for ‘on campus’ and one for ‘off campus’. They peg that ‘on campus’ at the highest aid, followed by the ‘off campus’, which is of course higher than ‘at home’. (they now also have an off-campus-frat estimate).</p>
<p>Crimson- tell your friend not to steal.</p>
<p>seriously, why even ask these questions. U may as well hide all ur income and say I dont pay ant tax to IRS (which is a distorted truth). and get full aid.</p>
<p>If I want to live at home, can I choose off campus???</p>
<p>Shirley- No, on the FAFSA, you choose ‘with parent’.</p>
<p>this is quite coincidental… a friend of mine that goes to a different school actually did this. she will be going to a state school (in our city) and staying with parents but she said she was going to live away from home… and because of her efc got pretty much a full ride off of federal grants. She did in fact get more money then another friend who had about the same EFC but stated she would be staying with her parents. When some of us asked friend #1 put she was living off campus, we were appalled to learn that the counselor at her school told her to do this in order to get more money! … infact apparently the counselor told this ‘idea’ to a number of students…</p>
<p>Hmm.</p>
<p>Wonder if the counselor also told her to steal her textbooks from the campus bookstore to save money. Whatever-</p>
<p>wow what school did your friends go to?</p>
<p>i’d rather not directly say it but for those who live in the seattle area… this highschool had a scandal i believe last year that involved three counselors that allegedly changed grades and course titles on the some people’s transcripts</p>