Originally Posted by Cat Herder:
***** To add to this a young college/career counselor (25ish) recently told my husband and I that if we divorced before our oldest applied for FAFSA this year we would be eligible for financial aide since it would only be based on my income that way (2nd marriage). She went on to explain that if we stay married we can only hope for loans or academic scholarships since they factor in household incomes...
This is being given out as "legitimate" financial ADVICE now. By people with degrees... employed by our school system. I was not even complaining about the cost as I factored it in when I stopped birth control, this was her usual spiel 
Single Moms are not what they once were.... don't fall for it.
I am in school right now. You would not believe the mess I have been going thru. It is 100% true that I would be better off financially if I divorced my husband. I could get WIC, food stamps, medical insurance, daycare subsidy, and college grants plus child support and housing subsidy. I could live on this without having any job (including daycare). I could "easily" divorce my husband, not work at all besides taking care of my kids and get 50 to 80% of my bills paid from day one. It is crazy. I cried when I had to face all this. There is very very little to no support for married moms trying to better themselves. I have four kids, a more than full time job, full time college courseload and we are living paycheck to paycheck because I am fighting against all this to stay married! This is a crazy crazy world.