<p>*and how am I going to pay for transferring to 40 grand/year schools? To get where I want to get I’m going to need to get a good internship and good connections, but how am I going to afford that 40 grand/year? *</p>
<p>You can’t afford the 40k a year. You will not be able to take out 40k a year in loans. Even with a cosigner, you probably would be cut off at some point long before you reached a cumulative 80 - 120K+ in loans by the banks themselves. And no student should seriously contemplate taking 80k - 120k in loans even if they found a cosigner. And doubly so if this same student wants to go to grad school.</p>
<p>Students don’t go to colleges that cost 40K+ unless they have receive substantial scholarships or have parents who pay cost. You have placed yourself out of the running for freshman year scholarships because your grades are not sufficient and you have placed yourself out of the running for money help from your parents for the same reason. Though reading between the lines, it doesn’t sound like they really had much of an intention to ever pay for college for you regardless of grades because they seem to have no savings set aside expressly for you and have been making large purchases even though you were about to launch to college… your average grades was probably just a good excuse. That being said, it your parents’ choice and you get to make do with what you have been handed or not in that arena. Under zero circumstances are they legally obligated and it is my opinion they are not morally obligated, either. The fuzzy zone for me would have been that it would be better were your parents more straight with you early on so you knew the benchmark (if there indeed ever was one) you needed to reach and/or were told in 9th or 10th grade that you needed to make college work on your own funds so you could plan and act accordingly.</p>
<p>Either way, you have your wakeup call now. You can’t afford a 40k+ college, it is highly unlikely there will be enough in scholarships to cover the difference, and you need to figure out what colleges you CAN afford and how you will work your way through college. Try to stay under 30K MAX total for your undergrad loans (and that is a bit high) .</p>