The U.S. Department of Education announced today that it will recognize a student or a parent as legally married if they were legally married in any jurisdiction that recognizes the marriage, regardless of the gender of the spouses, where they live, or where they are attending school.
This certainly clarifies terminology and makes a definite statement for equality — but the Department had, in fact, announced in April that it would ask for information about a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, as long as the parents live together. The 2014-2015 FAFSA federal student aid form will therefore allow dependent applicants to describe their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together.” It will also use terms like “Parent 1 (father/mother/stepparent)” and “Parent 2 (father/mother/stepparent).”
Of course, some families with same-sex parents may have benefited by having only one parent’s income counted — even though, as I discussed in April, they probably should have been counting both parent’s contributions anyway. Still, equality is equality, even if it doesn’t always benefit us financially. (My spouse and I will likely pay more in taxes filing federally as married, but gosh darn it, we’re staying wed.)