I was in a meeting this afternoon at work when I heard something that maybe my fellow Kossacks can help out with. There's a bill sitting in Congress that would make it easier for homeless kids to apply for financial aid so they can get a college education and get off the streets.
Obviously, this is not a particularly "sexy" issue, so it hasn't been getting a lot of attention. But a couple of people from the university where I work have been going around interviewing homeless kids all across the country, and they're heading to Washington this week or next to see if they can't light a fire under Congress to do something about the problem.
And that's where I figure y'all come in. Follow me below the fold for some details.
Some background. About 80% of school districts in the United States have students who are homeless. It's difficult (obviously) to get reliable numbers, but the problem is real--and even one kid who has to miss college because of a stupid bureaucratic rule is one kid too many.
As anyone knows who has ever applied for financial aid within the last 20 years, most schools use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA form. It's a long, tedious thing that you fill out and send in, and after some computer chews on the data for a while, it spits back calculations on about how much you and your family should be able to afford to pay for your college education, and how much financial aid you should qualify for. The student has to fill out part of it, and the student's parents (or at least one of them) has to fill out and sign the rest of it.
And therein lies the rub. A homeless kid may be lucky enough (if you can call it luck) to have a parent or legal guardian who's able to sign the form. But most don't--which is what you'd expect of kids who ran away to escape abusive situations, or whose parents kicked them out of the house for whatever reason.
There is a dodge around the parental requirement, if the student is a legally emancipated minor. But getting that status takes a lot of time and effort and money, and involves going through the courts. The end result is that most homeless kids aren't able to complete the FAFSA form--and therefore don't qualify for financial aid. And that, of course, means that they don't go to college.
Back in January, Reps. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.) and Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.) introduced H. R. 601, which they're calling the FAFSA Fix for Homeless Kids Act. Basically, it introduces a loophole in the Higher Education Act of 1965 that would allow directors of homeless shelters, financial aid administrators, and educational agency liaison officers to designate homeless children and enable them to submit FAFSA forms on their own behalf.
The bill's simple, costs nothing beyond the financial aid the government is already providing, and should enjoy wide bipartisan support except from the truly callous or the truly clueless among the Congresscritters. But it won't go anywhere until it gets out of committee. (It's been assigned to the Committee on Education and Labor.)
So what do you say, Kossacks? Can we light up the Congressional switchboards and write a few letters (whether to Congresscritters or to newspapers) on behalf of a good bill that would make it easier for some deserving kids to get a college education and maybe turn their lives around?
UPDATE: Link to bill fixed. (I think.) Also, via bumblebums in comments, here's a poll to do a dKos on.