There are some parents who skip vacations and drive an old clunker so they can afford to send their kids to college. And there are other parents who don’t skimp on luxuries and end up in a financial bind when it comes time to pay for college.

Each year, the U.S. Department of Education is supposed to review the formula used to determine how much money a student’s family should contribute toward college costs and how much financial aid the student is entitled to. But since a college education became an entitlement, allocations of financial aid have called into question exactly who deserves assistance or whether anybody should get educational subsidies at all.

The federal formula for determining a family’s contribution is weighted heavily not only by income but also by total assets. Thus, educational grants too often end up being insults to fiscally prudent people who, after a lifetime of scrimping, are deemed to be “too wealthy” for financial aid. Consider, for example, this vignette from real life.

A father and son, a senior in high school, are off on a weekend sojourn, driving to visit a university 200 miles away. The school is conducting an open house for prospective students and is the one the son wants to attend.

There is an air of excitement and expectation as they drive into the dusk of a Friday evening. It is quality time, one of the few occasions a father and son are doing something apart from the mother and the two daughters.

The school has a Navy ROTC program, and the primary excuse for the trip is the son’s pending application for an ROTC scholarship. The son wants to be an engineer and already is studying calculus in high school. He has an excellent academic record, is a varsity athlete and church acolyte and is active in the YMCA. In all, he is a model citizen. Still, winning the full-tuition scholarship is a long shot at best, and Dad fears his son will find the school to his liking but its cost out of reach.

The next day, the fears are confirmed. The university has an excellent program and top-notch facilities. But when father and son are ushered into the office of an admissions counselor, she breaks the bad news. Yearly costs will be more than $30,000. And, yes, the family financial situation is too solid to allow any financial aid. A request for financial assistance would fail the test of means.

The news is hard to swallow. Mom and Dad have lived a prudent life in a modest home with virtually no luxuries. Every available dollar has been stashed away for the kids’ education. Now the son alone could consume the entire nest egg even before graduating from college if he attends the school of his choice.

In the course of the discussion, the counselor mentions that she is a graduate of the university. The father asks how she was able to afford it, and her reply hits him like a sledgehammer: “Oh, I was abandoned as a child and raised by destitute grandparents. We didn’t have a cent, so I didn’t have to pay any tuition.”

Father and son have a quiet ride home. If Dad had deserted the family a few years earlier, his son would have an excellent chance of attending the university of his dreams. The test of means turned out to be the meanest test of all.

Ronald Khol is editor of Machine Design, an engineering trade journal published by Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland.