Agreed. They lost interest when the kids were old enough to speak their minds, according to this letter. That's pretty independently damning, and so is not helping with FAFSA.

If LW is obsessed with the money angle now, that would not be all that out there in someone who experienced the trouble she describes in struggling to go to college. People who have experienced insecurity often compulsively fixate on or hoard the resource that was insecure in their formative years.