My recent post on the upcoming Oregon tax ballot measure (which I support) noted the administrative difficulties that the proposed retroactive tax increase poses. I hadn't thought about the fact that tax returns might be used for other purposes, including use by students applying for financial aid. A reader writes:

The revision of the taxes also affects college students in Oregon. We have to fill our our federal financial aid forms knowing about our tax returns. Being that the most important form, the Fafsa, needs to be sent in during the first five weeks of the new year. (Now that January 28 date makes me laugh. And cry.)

Most Oregon residents attending college in Oregon will all be affected in the same manner. No one will be able to send in their forms, and no aid money will be distributed among Oregonians. However, Oregonians going out-of-state for college seem to be put at a disadvantage because they get their forms later (the later the forms are in, the less aid is received), and out-of-state residents attending Oregon schools will be at an advantage, because their aid forms will be in earlier.

But I'll mark my ballot in favor of a few extra hundred bucks in income tax, even though I shudder to think about the process by which it will be spent.

And I'll be thinking about those college students who will be scrambling to meet their deadline, regardless of how the election comes out.