I have never really envied the rich. Like everyone else, I imagine it might be fun to know what it is to play in that heady fantasy land of luxury, but I have never really pined for wealth. I have never longed for the house by the shore, the designer clothes, the fancy car, the diamonds, the pearls. Lack of funds never stopped me from seeing the world, and security never figured high on my list of priorities. (Just ask my accountant*.)
The only time I yearn for more than sufficient funds in the bank is when February rolls around, bringing with it the dreaded financial aid forms and my ensuing state of bewilderment verging on apoplexy. It is FAFSA time, that ridiculously hard to pronounce acronym for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. February is the month when I could kick myself for not having made enough money to avoid the “financial aid fandango.”
For those of you who’ve never experienced it first hand, the lucky ones who can sign for the whole outrageous tuition bill, you will never understand the torture imposed on those poor souls who need help subsidizing their children’s college education. You will have missed the hair-tearing confusion, the utter despair of trying to tackle what has to be one of the most nerve-wracking procedures in this culture – those of the Immigration and Naturalization Service excluded.
Along with the FAFSA, there’s the CSS Profile, an application similar to the FAFSA also used to determine financial eligibility, but this one devised by those wonderful College Board folks who have a fee for everything, adding heftily to their own financial aid. If you’re self-employed, there’s the Business/Farm Supplement; if you’re divorced, the Noncustodial Parent Profile. Good luck to you if your estranged spouse has long been MIA. You’ll probably need an affidavit from the FBI.
Along with the fifty pages of instructions to print out, there are the mandatory, official cover sheets to be sent with every piece of hard copy. There are tax returns to submit and earnings to be estimated for the year hence, a futile activity these days if ever there was one. There are user names and passwords and pins for every occasion.
It is all too much. Though I consider myself reasonably bright, I know that if it weren’t for the largesse of my friend Ann who helps me out with this loathsome task every year, my daughter would probably not be going to college. And, to my chagrin, just when we’d streamlined the process with the school she attended for two years, my daughter decides to transfer. This year, there will be a whole new set of “to dos” not just for one school but for three, the most costly requiring yet another lengthy application.
Every February without fail, as I walk around with the foreboding of having missed a deadline, I think about those less fortunate than I. I think about those whose lives are far more overwhelming than mine. Way harder. Those who never finished high school. Those who don’t write English; those who struggle just to speak it. How do they do it? How do their children ever make it to college? I’m hoping that they all have an Ann in their lives.
* Daniel Wolf, JD, CPA, aka Accountant Man, also helps immeasurably to make this hateful process go as smoothly as possible.
Tags: FAFSA, financial aid
Sixties Chick 
February 3, 2009 at 9:16 pm |
Do you need another roller-ball pen to complete all that paperwork?…
February 3, 2009 at 11:49 pm |
OK, with no kids of my own, I haven’t experienced your angst. I can, however, relate on some level. At work. Stuff comes across my desk of which I have no understanding; it has nothing to do with what should be the role of a principal (that being instruction). I haven’t the slightest inkling to even try to understand it, much less actually DO it. Far too detailed and complicated, and I find as I age I grow increasingly less tolerant to do anything I have no interest in.
My solution, however, is easier than yours. I pass it on to Nancy, my admin secretary. The wonder whiz of my life. So, you have Ann, I have Nancy.
Thank God.