Rhandco, why do you keep posting this advice. It is NOT easy to become independent for financial aid purposes. Disagreements with parents is not going to get you this independent status.
This advice is not helpful in the very vast majority of cases. Just not possible to do.
Where are you getting your info that this is so easily done? It’s not.
Yeah, everything I’ve read about becoming independent paints it as a very difficult thing to do, and I don’t consider it one of my better options. I don’t want to wait 6 years to go to college nor do I want to join the military nor do I want to get married.
What “choice” are you talking about?
Rhandco. This student’s family has not disowned her. She never said that.
Logan…you have a secondary plan. And keeping a relationship with your parents sounds like part of that. It will all work out somehow.
Disowned him* actually haha. I know Logan can be androgynous.
I do have a secondary plan. I’m hopeful. There’s always a chance I get into one of the Ivies that has beyond-amazing aid. Everything will fall into place. Thank you, thumper.
Even for the Ivies, if your EFC is 20K, most will give you only grants, but up to cost of attending minus 20K. And you will need to take out 20K per year of loans in order to pay the difference. No Ivy is going to give you full need AND 20K per year.
The lifestyle choice is mentioned elsewhere. As for “disowned”, if parents refuse to pay ANYTHING for a child’s college, how is that short of being disowned? Could you wrangle $200 of allowance per week, that’s enough for 10K per year…
So OP, here is the question:
In my case, I didn’t want to pay more than 30K, our EFC, for my son’s college, but after all the numbers were run, we will be paying more like 40K per year. There were two options that were 20K per year, but I decided they weren’t the best opportunities for my son.
If your parents are predicted to be able to afford 20K per year and they will pay NOTHING, they are not supporting you.
Have you tried intervention, perhaps from a mentor, a teacher, or a member of clergy? Someone to talk to your parents on your behalf? Is it step-parents who are putting the kibosh on your parents paying for your college, or is there something else going on? Do they really mean “I’m not paying 60K!!!” or do they mean “I’m not paying a dime!”
(how about: would you pay anything towards your child’s college, if your and your parents roles were reversed? Something seems VERY suspicious about not wanting to pay ANYTHING towards their child’s college education. Would they agree to pay 10K per year, and you could take out loans for 10K per year?)
Poppycock. Not paying for college does not mean the family “disowned” anyone. It just means they can’t or won’t pay for college. Rhandco…on this one you are wrong. If you were right, tens of thousands of thousands of parents would say “we aren’t paying” and kids would be able to be independent for financial aid.
That’s not how it works…so please stop misleading folks into thinking that not parents not paying for college will somehow qualfy them for independent status for financial aid purposes. It won’t.
“Disowned” is a much more invasive status than not paying for college. And anyway…being disowned because of personal differences between family and student won’t qualify you for independent status either.
@kelsmom hope she sees this.
Rhandco, this has been pointed out to you again and again and again.
rhandco, the net price calculators for a few of the Ivies produce a much smaller net price than the rest of my schools, which is why I said that.
I have talked to my mom time and time again, and she insists all of their money is tied up in my bills. I’ve asked nicely, I’ve asked angrily, I’ve asked politely. Nothing. I think it’s mostly my stepdad. He didn’t go to/pay for college, so he doesn’t want to give me anything. They don’t understand that an 18-year-old can’t just come up with 20,000 a year, and taking out that much in loans is absurd.
They are paying nothing as of everything I know right now. They said I could take the 2500 tax credit they’ll be eligible for, but that’s it.
I haven’t tried an intervention. I am not sure who I would be comfortable having do that, but I’m sure I could find someone.
If I ever have children, I will do everything in my power to put them in a place where they don’t have to stress about money to the extent that I am. I will certainly expect them to contribute what they can from savings, work, scholarships, etc. but never would I ask them to try and come up with 20,000 a year and I will do all I can to prevent them from taking out loans.
As for being independent being “easily done”, I NEVER meant to imply that. Just because it is not easy doesn’t mean it is impossible. Yes, it may not be a good idea, but the situation of no money for college at all begs the question. And yes, I have heard of college students who have applied and it was rejected, especially in the case related to that at the end of this post - the college student was living with her grandmother, not at her parents home and did not have her parents support, and the parents tried to get her declared independent, but the judge ruled against them.
I do have personal experience with a friend who had an odd situation leading to a serious investigation into being declared independent, the reverse of most college students. Her parents payed 100% of her college tuition and room and board during the school year, but kicked her out of the house and refused to let her stay at home. She found this out Christmas break freshmen year, when she arrived home and had to leave to find a hotel room.
She was looking into being declared independent because she had nowhere to live in the summer and not enough money to pay for incidentals at college. She ended up accepting a lot of money from her boyfriend, and married him after college, after living with him and being his dependent essentially.
Her situation was the opposite, because she basically took money from someone on the order of a few thousand dollars per year due to lack of support from her parents (who still had her on their tax forms), yet tens of thousands of dollars per year were going to the university. We even let her live in our sorority house for free when this hit the fan.
In my state, there is a legal responsibility for divorced parents to pay for their children’s college. It may be hard to be declared independent, but it will be just as hard to get many colleges to pony up for the 20K EFC (barring merit scholarships, not available at Ivies) or to get your state to agree with my state’s ruling on divorced parents. All three things might be on the same level of impossibility, which leads back to merit scholarships or working and going to CC as the only reasonable suggestions.
So many threads on CC where students’ families can’t afford or won’t pay the EFC. Then the student needs to figure out what else to do. There was a kid who got into MIT and had to go to a state school instead because of money. Kids make these decisions all the time.
This student is not experiencing the dire situation of your sample of one. Actually, it sounds like her family is doing the best they can right now to support her college attendance.
No. The OP asked a question that possibly revealed some personal information about himself, but nobody used the word “choice” until you did. So I ask again: what “choice” are you talking about?
@loganwahl I am glad you are exploring and applying to other schools that will be a better financial fit. A private like Grinnell may not be an ideal place for you if you want to pursue medicine. You do not want to incur a great amount of UG debt. A school like UAB will be a great fit if you do want to pursue medical school.
You should not waste your time/energy being angry with your family for saying what they will/won’t do financially for your attendance at college. If you have great academic aptitude, this is a wonderful gift to utilize. Yes, others have families providing greater financial support, but if you choose to go somewhere that is affordable to you - that is key at this point for you!
Go to the positives in life. Don’t let perceived drawbacks affect your attitude and your potential. Good luck! I have a DD at UAB and she loves it there.
Thank you for the encouragement, SOS. I needed to hear that. I appreciate the words of wisdom. I will keep a positive attitude. I know I have a great future ahead of me.
Rhand- you are confusing apples and oranges. The fact that a divorced parent may be compelled to pay part of a kid’s college education as part of a divorce settlement is completely irrelevant to whether a kid can be emancipated due to a parent’s inability or unwillingness to pay for college. Not at all the same thing, and stop telling vulnerable teenagers that they can get themselves declared independent.
In my state, a social worker, teacher, or another mandated reporter would need to report a case of serious abuse or neglect. That gets the ball rolling. A kid can’t show up in Family Court to tell a judge, “listen- my parents won’t pay our EFC and I can’t take out enough in loans to cover tuition at a private college- so can you set me loose from these folks?”
So it’s not that it’s “hard” to be declared emancipated- there needs to be a fact pattern, documentation, time “in the system”, and a lot of muscle from the family court system to put the wheels in motion. Not hard- but needs factual evidence of abuse.
got it?
@loganwahl, I think house sitting for your grandmother for most of the year is a great option. It would save you a bundle, help her out, and you’d be very independent. She may also know other snowbirds who need house sitters if she doesn’t need you, and that might be solution too.
CC is a unique group of very knowledgeable people about college costs and financing, but your parents, along with the majority of parents, just don’t know how much it costs, how to finance it, that kids can’t do it alone. Step-parent might be involved but may not have realized what they signed on for, or they have their own kids they paid for, or they had their own kids they didn’t pay tuition for and think you should do it yourself since his kids did. Just yesterday my mother was complaining that my nephew’s mother refused to sign for loans for him (he is the golden child to my mother, his grandmother). I told her that nephew could have gotten his own loans but he didn’t want them, so why should his mother? My mother, admittedly older and never did any financial aid for any of her children, had no idea that parents didn’t sign for the the Stafford loans, the students did. She’d been blaming former SIL but it was nephew’s choice to not take the loans.
I wouldn’t count on your mother coming up with money. If you can arrange it to live with your father to file the FAFSA through him, and then go to a state school, live at your grandmothers, you might have a plan that will work.
This is what I said:
“If your parents will pay zero, and will not support you financially otherwise, you should look into being declared independent. That would especially be true if they have disowned you because of your lifestyle choice, and you might be able to find some free legal help such as NYLAG’s LGBTQ Law Project.”
Post #53 said:
" Not at all the same thing, and stop telling vulnerable teenagers that they can get themselves declared independent."
I don’t think the response in post #53 to my post #39 was warranted. I wasn’t “telling” anyone anything, I made a suggestion based on a few postings.
If that is not the OP’s case, obviously it is moot. Like my friend in college, if a young adult’s parents pick and choose how they will financially support them, they can make life difficult without the possibility of being declared independent. I have family members who disowned their children because the children wanted to live with their mother. He does not report having children, and they are still minors. He was very poor working a trade but came into quite a bit of money, and his brother is sure that his ex-wife and his children have no idea, as he was too poor compared to his wife to be required to pay child support.
Those children would have to declare that they could not find him (which would be a lie, he owns a business with his last name in the title and has not moved, but they aren’t in contact with him so perhaps they could get a NCP waiver) or suddenly their NCP with hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash in the bank affects their ability to get aid for college.
This is another thread about NCP not paying, somewhat similar to the OP’s situation:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1698816-non-custodial-parent-on-css-profile-p1.html
In the VAST majority of cases, undergrad students can’t just declare themselves independent for financial aid purposes. In the vast majority of cases, undergrad students will not be given dependency overrides simply because a parent says they won’t pay for college…married, divorced or whatever.
Yes, there are dire cases when an undergrad student is declared independent. Cases of abuse, or incarcRated parents, or abandonment or truthfully being homeless.
None of these were even hinted at by the OP to this thread. None.
So the suggestion to consider becoming independent was not something they even could consider.
"If your parents will pay zero, and will not support you financially otherwise, you should look into being declared independent. "
Rhand- in my state, a teenager cannot “look into being declared independent” like one investigates getting a learner’s permit. Being declared independent is one of the ramifications of a long and complex legal process, typically initiated by a mandated reporter contacting law enforcement, NOT initiated by a kid who is upset about limited college options.
Got it?
The issue of your family member disowning his children is a bit of a red herring.