<p>Fortunately, Yale’s immense endownment means that it can give full financial aid to both deserving inner city students and the children of legacies who have chosen socially redeeming, low paying jobs. No group is robbing another group at Yale. There’s enough money to go around. I very strongly suspect that vast majority of Yale financial aid recipients are not legacies (given the percent of legacies in the average Yale class, this has to be true). In any event, you shouldn’t punish the child for the decisions made by his/her parents. If you want to complain about schools where money is taken from low income students and given to middle and upper class students, then complain about schools that offer merit aid but not 100% need based financial aid.</p>
<p>I read nowhere that OP’s parents are trying to game the system and have only performed in non-profit settings this year. I think the FA form would catch a person working without pay for the year before their child applied to college. Home equity and other assets (some schools ask what cars you own, for example) would reveal that year to be an anomaly. Also, schools like Yale don’t just look at income, they also look at assets in determining FA. So, if you made no money in a given year but have $2M in real estate and $5M in retirement funds, then you probably won’t get aid. I think so few people are truly gaming the system successfully that it’s not worth worrying about.</p>
<p>There are plenty of very time consuming jobs with low pay. For instance, I think it’s wonderful that highly educated people take jobs such as working as legal aid attorneys. Should a child be punished because his/her Ivy-educated parent is doing legal work for the poor instead of structuring billion dollar corporate deals?</p>
<p>There is no question that the world of FA is filled with frustration, but it’s hard to envision a system that would make everyone happy. Bottom line, parents “not earning up to their potential” won’t hurt you at the top schools. I confess not to know enough about non-HYP schools to know if it would hurt you elsewhere.</p>