Ainsley Anderson has no way to fully tell the truth when applying for financial aid.
The FAFSA she fills out every year does not provide an option for her to report both parents’ incomes, because her parents are of the same sex.
“She is frustrated because she wants to be truthful, but there is no way legally to do that,” said Paul Williams, her brother and the LGBTQ ally cohort leader for the UC Berkeley Gender and Equity Resource center.
In 2014, that will change.
The U.S. Department of Education announced April 29 that the FAFSA, completed by more than 15 million students every year, will begin to collect information about students’ parents regardless of their marital status or gender.
The new form is an attempt to more accurately calculate students’ financial needs and ensure a fairer and more inclusive application process, according to a press release.
“The change will strengthen the integrity of the student aid programs by more accurately capturing a family’s ability to pay for college,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a press conference.
The new form will allow applicants to describe their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together” and will use terms like “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” instead of father, mother or step-parent.
Starting in 2014, Anderson will be able to record her biological mother’s income as well as her mother’s partner’s income, which will more accurately reflect her household’s finances. Both of Anderson’s moms are teachers, earning together what Williams estimates is around $105,000. On the old form, Anderson only recorded half of that income.
“She gets a lot of aid now — and she isn’t complaining about that,” said Williams. “But she feels guilty. It’s not as if her parents are unable to pay if they had to.”
According to a report by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan educational institute, the current form’s narrow language misallocates financial aid based on sexual orientation or gender identity — characteristics the report says are “completely divorced from an applicant’s actual need for financial aid”.
A major consequence of the old form’s discriminatory language, according to the report’s author, Cal alumnus Crosby Burns, was that it frustrated students with LBGT parents. The language often discouraged students from filing for financial aid, he said.
“There are barriers and delays,” Burns said. “It hurts the student’s ability to get equal access to financial aid for higher education.”
The Department of Education has not yet calculated the effect of introducing these changes to the FAFSA. The amount of financial aid students will receive next year will vary by student, with some receiving more after the change and some receiving less.
Duncan said finances were not a consideration in the department’s changed policy.
“It’s really the right thing to do, and cost savings actually had nothing to do with it because we don’t know whether it will cost more or less,” he said in the press conference.
The announcement comes about a month after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The DOMA prohibits any federal agency from recognizing any form of same-sex relationships, including marriage, domestic partnerships and civil unions.
According to a joint Washington Post-ABC News poll, about 58 percent of Americans favor legalizing same-sex marriage.
“I think the Department of Education read the tea leaves and saw public acceptance on the rise and realized they should get on the ball sooner rather than later,” Burns said.
Alex Berryhill covers higher education. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @berryhill93.