Cheating minimal on financial aid forms

With the upcoming deadline to submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, representatives from the University Financial Aid Office said they are not worried about students and parents cheating on their applications.

Applications from incoming students must be received by the FAFSA department by Feb. 21, while current students have until March 21.

In contrast to reports nationwide that both students and their parents are attempting to cheat the system, University administrators said they have not had many problems with the issue.

Thom Johnson, a financial aid officer, said he can only remember a few cases in the past 20 years when students were caught providing false information to the University.

The Financial Aid Office was able to avoid these problems by implementing an internal system of verifying application information.

DANA LINNANE/Daily LSA junior Shaghne Manning browses handouts yesterday at the Financial Aid Office. University Financial Aid Office employees said they are not worried about students cheating on applications.

"We require almost all students to produce both student and parent tax returns, as well as another verification worksheet," Johnson said.

The University punished the cheating students by sending their cases to the federal government. No further action was taken on these cases, Johnson said, but there have been recommendations to punish students and their parents through legal action in other instances.

Johnson said he believes those sanctions are too harsh.

"I think there should be some punishment, such as barriers for future federal aid, and restitution of stolen funds," Johnson said.

LSA junior Jeff Gorman agreed, explaining he was not shocked that students were trying to cut corners. But, Gorman said, they should pay for their actions.

"I am an out-of-state student and my parents would do anything to save money on tuition, so if people are out there cheating, then they deserve to be punished," Gorman said.

Jan McDonough, a local associate financial adviser for MTS-Al McDonough, said her firm helps students fill out their FAFSA forms, but she has never found any falsified information.

"We fill out student and parent applications with the help of their income tax statements," McDonough said.

Lola Wilkins, a supervisor for the Federal Student Aid Information Center, said that they have received reports of cheating.

"Sometimes we get questions in reference to students cheating on their forms," Wilkins said. "We usually report them to the student's college."

If the government does decide to take a stronger stance on cheating, Johnson said, individual schools would do most of the work - meaning the University would be responsible for identifying people who had falsified information on applications.

He added that such a program would be funded by educational funds from the government.

"The government is going to put the burden on the universities to find these people," Johnson said. "They are going to use money from the education budget to fight the problem."

02-24-99