Any tips? :)
It isn't even clear how to make them stop that, per se, because in general that's a desirable characteristic of the system. You can't use the tax system to nudge people or do anything progressive beyond the most basic and clumsy income-bucket based categorization if you can't set up incentives and expect people to "optimize" to them.
Say you make 15k a year, your tax rate is zero, 16k, it's perhaps 1%, etc. etc. until you get to the big dogs who net millions a year, far more than they could reasonably spend on their own living expenses and well being, then you tax them 90%.
Or maybe you can add tax on every purchase if you have a certain level of wealth. Someone who is broke might reserve a $2 coke for a special treat if they only made $50 that day, but if you made 50k that day it's still a $2 coke and not a $2000 coke. Replace coke with house, car, tuition, medical bills, anything you want.
In the current system you can hide your income in a company and pay yourself remarkably little on paper, so I say tax those companies heavily as well. If money is fungible, taxes should be too and it shouldn't matter if the company makes 1m and you make 100k or if you make 1m and the company makes 100k, the tax burden should be exactly the same as it represents the same movement of 1.1m. The fact that the tax burden isn't the same currently is corrupt and serves the few at the cost of the many.
As the father of a child with a learning disability, I was shocked to learn that the process of getting public funding to help him (which in MA at least, is a legal right spelled out in state law) is entirely centered around the local school district attempting to drag everything out as long as possible and make it as hard as possible so that you have to spend quite a bit of money in advocates, experts, medical professionals, lawyers, etc. Their entire game is to wait you out until your bank account runs dry.
I'm fortunate in that I'm wealthy enough to be able to front the money to drag the school district to court and force them to pay (though I'm only a bit more than a year into what is likely a 2-3 year process). But it became immediately obvious that anybody less fortunate is just simply screwed. Poor families with children that have moderate disabilities will never, ever get the funding.
Notwithstanding its own merits, this argument is a non sequitur. This is not a case of rich people affording a maneuver that poor people can't. Poor people won't ever be in the situation where they have to separate from their kid in order to qualify for financial aid. In that sense, poor people have an advantage.
Furthermore, that rich people are taking advantage of programs meant for poorer people is ultimately an unethical thing to do.
And even worse, this isn't even just trying to get admitted in the first place. If that were the situation, then it would be much more understandable as rich and poor alike both want the best education for their children. But now the rich don't have to pay full price for the education and take advantage of a program designed for those with less money? I get what they're doing is (almost certainly) legal and everybody wants to minimize their bill, but they are directly harming the people who actually need it in this case.
The argument "poor people have an advantage" in receiving benefits designed solely for poor people is absurd - there shouldn't be competition between rich and poor here at all.
You're right, very poor families making $20k per year will qualify for need-based financial aid.
However, "middle class" families making $50k may not. They're sharing expenses and the kids are working just to stay in a house and have a car to split among the family members, and it feels like there's not enough to go around for day-to-day, but hypothetically enough to send one kid to college. Maybe they have two kids and the younger is a high school junior, FAFSA will assume that all the available money is available to send the first to their freshman year and not plan for next year.
But if they're making $150k/year, they can have a lawyer and accountant help them structure their funds so that the kids do get financial aid.
One year I made $11k and it dramatically reduced my grants. I imagine a dependent student with both parents working and making $60k+ get essentially nothing in grants.
Hearing that 'rich kids' are essentially hiding their parents income/contribution to get max financial aid is a cruel joke. The parents and student should go to jail for fraud.
Federalist #9
My advice. Stay calm, stay true, speak truth to power, protect the disadvantaged
There are certainly standards in place which should standardize this across school district lines, but balancing the maximum student slots available with the budget is more of a challenge for poor school districts.
In Ohio at least I have a feeling some wealthier school districts are using IEPs to artificially raise school wide student test scores as well, since these students don't always count towards the scores and rankings (I am not sure exactly how it works as it depends on the grade level and other specifics).
And these people aren't "smart" for discovering they can deceive the government for gain.
All that means more time.
You'd be wrong. The poor are working two jobs. The poor are begging their boss for a couple hours off to go stand in line to get their kids on medicaid. The poor are walking to the bus stop. The poor are rushing to the apartment manager to give them partial rent so they still have a roof over their head.
Time is something the poor have very little of.
Edit: I see some of you drive by disagree with me. I see this all the time as foster parents. The poor are much more likely to be in a situation where their children are removed and so talking with the bio parents, I hear their struggles. But keep drive by disagreeing with me if that makes you feel better.
Also, you can do medicaid over the internet/phone/mail these days. Unless you have a problem with the workflow that prevents you from using these systems you should never have to speak to anyone in person. Or at least that's how it is in my state.
Edit: Since I'm apparently so wrong does anyone want to tell me what kind of legal shenanigans people who are poor enough to qualify for financial aid need to go through other than filling out the forms truthfully?
American colleges and universities have already been trending away from emphasizing high-stakes standardized tests in their admissions decisions. The tests themselves should be changed to make speed of answering not such a critical part of test-taking strategy. There would still be students with serious disabilities who would need additional time and other accommodations but there would be no need for extra time for kids with ADD, ADHD, etc., real or imagined.
For example:
If you put a simple tax system in (everyone pays 7%) the claim is that "Poorer people are negatively affected". (Their value of the money is higher than a much richer person) However, when you have a progressive tax system, you have people concerned about being in higher tax brackets. (Really isn't that big of a concern in a progressive system, but it's harder to do the math).