The Gray Zone

"This academic year marks year seven-our last, if all goes well-of paying college tuition for our kids. (TB's senior year and TG's first year were the same year.) My brother has just joined the ranks of tuition payers, with his oldest arriving at college a few days ago. We've both found ourselves in the increasingly common spot of making too much to get much aid, but too little to reasonably afford tuition without significant aid."

"People land in the gray zone in any number of ways. Sometimes the FAFSA calculation is simply unrealistic, whether because of fluctuating income, multiple siblings, divorce or the actual cost of living. Need-based aid is usually based on the FAFSA (or the CSS) or income tax return data, each of which is based on formulas that reflect political compromises rather than the cost of living. "Need" is a judgment, and judgments at scale tend to be blunt instruments at best."

"And that's under the relatively rosy scenario of having two-parent families in which both are citizens, both are employed and nobody has a disability requiring massive economic support. People with disabilities are often subject to unrealistically low savings thresholds before they lose Medicaid coverage; ABLE accounts help, but they go only so far, and relatively few eligible people know that they exist. Undocumented parents may be increasingly unwilling or unable to submit financial information, even if their children are citizens. And divor"

A growing "gray zone" places many middle-income families between qualifying for substantial aid and realistically affording college tuition. FAFSA and CSS formulas often fail to reflect fluctuating income, multiple siblings, divorce, and actual cost of living. Many colleges practice "gapping," offering less aid than FAFSA calculations indicate, which widens the affordability gap. Families with disabilities face low asset thresholds that threaten Medicaid eligibility; ABLE accounts provide limited relief and remain underused. Undocumented parents may avoid submitting financial data even when children are citizens, further complicating access to aid.

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