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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

> you can't just give preference based on income as its incredibly easy to fudge

That's why you have to look at total wealth, not just income... though I'm sure the ultra wealthy will find some way to work around that as well.

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You don't even need Trusts for this. EWS is decided by an issued certificate. The issuer can be bribed.

I knew a kid in high school whose parents divorced for college financial aid reasons. As long you have a trusting relationship, seems easy enough to divorce, give one spouse the wealth, and then remarry when you don't care about FAFSAs any more.

As a practical matter how would college admissions departments even try to account for "total wealth"? That number doesn't appear on income tax returns. Applicants could write down any number and there wouldn't be any way to verify it short of a court ordered forensic audit.

You disclose it on FAFSA, which most schools require even to be eligible for non-need-based financial assistance (such as academic scholarships)

Trusts are the most common way to do this.

Then any trusts that benefit you should be counted as part of your wealth.

So then the trust doesn't list you as a beneficiary but instead goes through a series of shell corporations that they don't control on paper. With stakes this high - your very child's future, there are always going to be people that are rich enough to break the spirit of the rules.

If it's a small handful of people, there's probably better things for them to spend time on, rather than trying to make an unbeatable system.

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