Filing as an independent doesn't help. I had a friend who was in all ways independent (was basically disowned by her parents) and she couldn't qualify for any FAFSA based aid because she was still required to disclose her parents assets, and her parents refused to sign the forms to do so.

This is the biggest problem for many kids. The system assumes parents are willing to pay a "fair share", when many are absolutely not, for any number of reasons. Those kids are penalized and it is completely unfair.

This was worse than that: her parent's weren't particularly rich, but she wasn't available for any FAFSA aid, since her parents refused to sign the disclosure forms.

Story of my life right now.

How old does someone have to be before they're automatically independent?

24

So can you just wait until you're 24 before signing up for college and get lots of subsidies?

Tons of high-school graduates in Australia get a job for a year after highschool, that way you will earn over a threshold amount in a year (I think it was $15k when I did it) and be declared independent from your parents.

Then when you go to university, you qualify for Youth Allowance and get paid to go, as I did. It was something like ~$450/week IIRC.

Yeah - http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink...

Marriage is a way to qualify as independent on the FAFSA. There are several ways - military service, certain legal emancipation situations, being a ward of the state, and being over 24. Marriage is the way that is least difficult to achieve.

Aging to the age of 24 is also comparatively easy to achieve. :-)

It is, but it stunts educational progress by 5-6 years.

It stunts credential obtaining progress, more accurately. They're two independent phases.

Yes, I think overall it might even be better for education. Tons of 18-year-old college students have no idea what they want out of college or how to achieve it. That might also be true of 24-year-olds, but I would guess a larger % by that point have a better idea why they are attending college, what they want to study, and how to study it.

Fair or not, for financial aid purposes, the student cannot just decide to become independent from their parents in the common scenario. They won't buy it. Also, I imagine everybody would do it if it were that simple.

I've wondered whether I could emancipate my kid to achieve the same effect. If you only have to file your own taxes, that'd make sense. Doesn't make sense to me that a legal adult's parents are roped into the equation.

They have to become emancipated before they turn 18, and you can only do that voluntarily in some states.

Isn't the issue is financial aid, not taxation? They are not the same notions of 'dependent'. EG you can be off US tax forms and still have your parent's assets/income disqualify you for finacial aid (ie, large monetary discounts on tuition a/k/a handouts etc).