They came to me in the middle of the night. They were young and beautiful and dressed up like they were about to go out. I had about an hour’s warning, and their knock on the door was light so as to wake no one who wasn’t already up. When they got to my doorstep, I was ready. I knew it would be hasty and impromptu, but there’s no reason even a simple wedding can’t be beautiful.

We shared grapes and wine, and I told them that what begins as new and perfect fruit can end up a rich, fermented, much-changed substance that the vine might not recognize. They tasted both and said their vows, and we signed the paperwork. With a little help from their friends, they were married.

In the state of California, any recognized member of the church clergy can marry individuals to one another if the couple has a license. Over the years, I’ve married a handful of couples in the woods and in my living room. I’ve seen the state and the nation struggle over the definition of marriage, and I’ve seen it take many forms. I’ve heard the academic and feminist arguments that marriage was, for many centuries, a primarily economic arrangement to secure the merging and inheritance of property. Much about marriage has changed, but for the very rich and the very poor, the economic part remains the same.

The rich have assets to protect. They draw up contracts and agreements to ensure no one is seduced into a holy and blissful union by a heartless and calculating gold digger.

The poor have other arrangements to make. We are more likely to cohabitate to save money, whether it is appropriate for the relationship or not. In my life, I have known men and women who choose to stay with partners who are abusive or merely unsuited because breaking up means giving up a place to call home.

My friends who were married that night in my living room loved one another and probably would have chosen to marry at some point. The reason they came to me with so little notice, however, was not a pregnancy or a shotgun or even a romantic whim. It was the deadline for FAFSA submissions for the following academic year. Too young to be considered independent from their parents, they were desperate for enough financial aid to transfer to a four-year university. They were the children of vanishing middle class. On paper, their folks could afford to contribute to their tuition, but real life is complicated with gambling addictions and jobs that don’t offer health care.

It wasn’t young love. It wasn’t an impetuous gesture or an adherence to belief. It was a financial decision. Like many decisions forced upon us by poverty, it was a decision that puts the future in jeopardy — no money down, crippling credit terms down the road. The FAFSA considers married students independent and places a student in a wholly separate category for aid. Choosing to marry now to qualify for aid may result in a possibly messy and potentially expensive divorce later, but in the moment, we do what we must. In the meantime, we give one another the gift of an education otherwise out of reach.

Tuition has outpaced the cost of living, outpaced inflation and shows no sign of slowing. People all over are taking drastic measures to afford school, and at the University of California, we are no different. A recent discussion on the cost of housing led some of my classmates to speculate on the appearance of quad dorms with four bunks to a room and the feasibility of (not kidding) camping on the Glade and writing a blog called The Great Outdorms. The idea of getting married for mercenary causes may rankle the romantic soul, but in the scheme of desperation, it seems almost a tame solution.

In my tradition, couples being wed grasp hands and are gently tied together to symbolize their bond. When this couple was tied, I told them to remember that it’s only one hand they’ve given and that the other remains free. True of their marriage, this also became a symbol of their shared commitment to helping one another get through school, support one another’s dreams and be good partners; they were not entirely bound, but they were also not entirely free.

Marriage was never pure. It is sometimes undertaken in the spirit of perfect altruism and true love, but my friends’ practical decision was perfectly in line with the long and fraught history of this evolving institution. They might have given up, waited a few years or taken on crushing loans to move forward with their education. A license to marry costs $97 and takes effect the moment both people say “I do.” They’re responsible to one another and for one another, and they take that seriously. This year, they’ll both graduate from a UC school with their respective bachelor’s degrees.

I now pronounce you educated to the minimum degree necessary to get a decent job.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post For richer or for poorer appeared first on The Daily Californian.

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 aberryhill@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @berryhill93.

The post FAFSA to include options for reporting same-sex parents starting 2014 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Students are only permitted to list one of their mothers or fathers on the FAFSA form, therefore presenting a quandary for those with same-sex parents. These students are then instructed to characterize their guardians as divorced, therefore lying about their family situation. This, in turn, could either result in the student receiving more or less aid than another student with heterosexual parents. The form also presents difficulties for other students who come from less typical family backgrounds, such as those who have a parent in jail.

The main reason why the form does not provide for students of same-sex couples is that it must reflect the restrictions set by the federal Defense of Marriage Act. But whether or not the federal government acknowledges same-sex marriage, the reality is that there are students from families with these unions. The form is intended to assess each student in order to deduce their needed aid, but instead it overlooks the truth of these students’ lives. This misrepresentation potentially leads to further detriment for students because universities and other institutions depend on the FAFSA to calculate their own distribution of funding and scholarships.

Certainly, universities may request additional information to better understand a student’s situation and take more backgrounds into account. However, FAFSA is rendered inefficient if these institutions must circumvent the financial aid system’s mechanisms in order to function in the best interest of students.
The Department of Education should look into alternatives. For example, listing parent one and parent two, rather than simply mother and father, may address the issue without violating the Defense of Marriage Act. The department must open its eyes to the truth behind the blank spaces of the FAFSA form. In seeking conformity, FAFSA oversimplifies the reality of a diverse range of students and detracts from the form’s purpose ­— to provide fairly distributed and necessary aid.

The post FAFSA’s folly appeared first on The Daily Californian.