Financial aid for education is made available by governments,
             educational institutions, and charitable trusts primarily with the
             objective of helping children who come from the less advantaged sections of
             society. Indeed, this is the reason why financial aid applications ask for
             information on family income and assets, as such data can help determine an
             individual student's financial need. The other important fact about student
             financial aid is that it is funded by taxes that are paid by all citizens
             on the tacit understanding that such monies will be used for the overall
             good of society. Thus, the system of student financial aid has been set up
             with an ethical purpose and as such, it can be argued that any attempt to
             deceive the system is unethical as it defeats the envisioned end of
             achieving social justice. Viewed from this perspective, I find that the
             justifications offered by John's parents for lying on John's financial aid
             application unacceptable. Further, the arguments put forth by John's
             parents are unconvincing even when evaluated on their own independent
             merit, as it raises the issue of certain basic, fundamental values such as
             integrity. Therefore, in my view, John's parents' arguments are pretty thin
             as they are tantamount to an ethically and morally wrong principle.
             However, it must be admitted that it was not easy to reach the above
             conclusions. For, although the arguments were untenable when viewed from
             the stand point of objectivism or the theory that moral and ethical values
             can be objective, one's sympathies were with John's parents. Take, for
             instance, their argument that colleges seem to reward middle-class families
             who don't save money by giving them financial aid, rather than rewarding
             people who've saved all they can in order to give their children the
             advantages of higher education. Such a fact hardly seems fair, and more so
             when taking into consid...