The world has changed a lot since I went to college. I applied to a few, was accepted by most of them and my parents paid for my college education. No big deal. This year we've seen parents bribing people to get their child into college; some of the bribes were pretty hefty, like a million dollars or more. Pro Publica has discovered another way parents can get out of paying for their child's education - give up legal guardianship of their children during their junior or senior year in high school to someone else — a friend, aunt, cousin or grandparent. The guardianship status then allows the students to declare themselves financially independent of their families so they can qualify for federal, state and university aid.
ProPublica Illinois found more than 40 guardianship cases fitting this profile filed between January 2018 and June 2019 in the Chicago suburbs of Lake County alone. The parents involved in these cases include lawyers, a doctor, an assistant school superintendent, as well as insurance and real estate agents. A number of the children are high-achieving scholars, athletes and musicians who attend or have been accepted to a range of universities, from large public institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, the University of Missouri and Indiana University, to smaller private colleges.
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