21-year-old treated as minor by college

[erifedaj]

I am a 21-year-old third-year undergraduate student at an American university. I have been annoyed for two years now by my university's policy of requiring parental signatures for study abroad. Last year I was forced to get a parental signature to participate in a university-sponsored study-abroad program. This year I am receiving scholarship money from the university to work and study abroad independently, not in a sponsored program.

I am supported financially by my parents, but they are not paying for my education. I am a dependent on my mother's health insurance plan. However, the signature required this year is not a covenant to pay or to cover health costs. It is a consent form.

As a non-minor, I should be able to travel abroad without parental consent. My parents wouldn't mind signing the form, but they support me in my protest against the university.

The university clearly thinks it can prevent parents from suing it in the event of accident to the student traveler. But if I were 30 years old, they could still sue on my behalf. With or without a consent form.

Is it legal for the university to require a parental signature for persons over 18? Is it legal for the university to request it at all? What are some laws that protect me?

 

[muggsyj]

This is not Legal Advice!


This may seem a Major issue to you but will be somewhat trivial as you get older.
If the University feel they may be sued on "any" grounds what so ever, they will take the best steps to protect themselves, the same as you would.

My son travelles in and out of the US to the UK, He also is a student just like you. I have not had to sign any consent forms for him? but then again he has his own insurance.
It would not bother me or him if I had to sign any consent forms, at the end of the day he is there to learn and the University is there to teach. So I think the most inportant thing of your days at University is to learn, enjoy yourself and brorden your mind.
So don't worry about the forms, you will be filling in plenty of those in your lifetime anyway.

Go have some fun and don't worry.