<p><em>edit:
my mistake, the title should have said, "Can my parents legally stop me from ATTENDING my first semester of College.</em></p>
<p>I have already been accepted to my first-choice school. I applied online and did not need my parents signature or electronic signature. </p>
<p>In any case, I unfortunately do not turn 18 until September 18th. My fall semester is scheduled to begin on August 24th. </p>
<p>My parents are not paying ANY of my tuition, for my travel expenses, or for anything else should I be allowed to go. The only things that are theirs in that sense are the clothes on my back. </p>
<p>My question is, can my parents legally stop me from missing my first semester of school, since I will not be of legal age when it is scheduled to begin? What are my options?</p>
<p>While it's their right to exercise parental power until you turn 18, it seems very unlikely they would get any support from authorities to insist you leave college a few weeks before you turn 18. By the time their case made it to court, you'd be 18.</p>
<p>Yes and no. They can forbid you to go, and if you go anyway they can ask the police to return you as a delinquent minor. The police will go "Uh-huh" and get around to it in a few years, maybe. </p>
<p>More importantly, they can refuse to sign parental consent forms, which will probably be a big administrative problem for the college and lead to the college not accepting your registration. However, under the circumstances you have about a 100% chance of being declared an emancipated minor if you go to court and ask for it, say, in mid-summer. That will end your parents' support obligation and right to control you. It would probably be a good idea to consult an attorney where you live about this; it's not that complicated and shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg to do.</p>
<p>A final problem is, if you are getting financial aid, the college may require your parents to submit a FAFSA this spring, and if they don't do that, you won't get the aid, even if it doesn't depend on their information at all.</p>
<p>
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More importantly, they can refuse to sign parental consent forms, which will probably be a big administrative problem for the college and lead to the college not accepting your registration.
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That's the thing, it is my stepdad and mom that have an issue with it. My father lives 20 minutes from campus (which is 1500 miles from here) and he will everything no problem. I will/would be staying with him while I am in school anyway :)</p>
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Are you saying that your parents are refusing to let you go to this college? If so, why? Please give us a little more information.
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Yes, that is the case at this time. They say that I told them that i was starting college in May, which is NOT TRUE. For one thing, they read my acceptance letter which states that I start in August.</p>
<p>I start college in August, and now they say that because I "lied" to them, they are keeping me at home and will make me work without pay.</p>
<p>This is getting confusing. Do you know whether your father has joint custody of you? He may have the power to give consent, or he may not. If he doesn't, he may sign papers anyway, which might or might not be a problem for him, although by the time things worked out you would be 18 and it would no longer be an issue. It also might or might not be a problem for your father to let you live with him (although, again, by the time things got settled you would be 18 and it would all be moot).</p>
<p>Does your father have a lawyer already, who was involved in the divorce? The easiest thing might be to move to modify the custody decree to switch primary custody to your father. Based on what you have said, that's pretty much a lay-up. Of course there might be another side to the story, but in general courts will let a 17-year-old choose which parent he or she wants to live with, assuming no drugs or such is involved, and that's even without taking into account college/no college. If he's paying child support, a shift in primary custody would get him out of the last few months of your support payments, which would probably enrage your mother a bit, but would also give her an incentive to make a deal that didn't result in a custody switch.</p>
<p>This is all intensely local family law stuff. You and your father need to talk to a lawyer as soon as possible to get a sense of your options. Don't get advice on the web.</p>
<p>Why would you pick a college 20 min. away from your father who lost all parental rights and 1500 miles away from those with parental rights? Of all the colleges in the country, you had to pick one near your biological father who lost all parental rights. Maybe your parents see your choice as a "slap in the face" to them. Are they against this particular college or all colleges?</p>
<p>How often do you actually see your father? You need to consider your mother's relationship with your dad (before, during the court battles, and now) and how her feelings affect her decisions on what to do with you.</p>
<p>You're treading shark infested waters, especially when money is an issue. Your mother doesn't sound too interested for you to go to school or at least be out of the house (work without pay?!). She may have some issues of her own and unresolved issues with her ex-husband.</p>
<p>I would... talk to a lawyer AND a GC who can mediate between you, your mother, and your father to figure out what's the most reasonable plan to attend this school. </p>
<p>In the meantime, convince your mother why you like that school beyond the reason that it's close to your dad. You need to somehow keep Dad out of the picture and make it all about you, not her or him.</p>
<p>technically yes but you should tell them that it's time for them to stop trying to baby you and realize that you're gonna have to move on sometime. also point out that they have no good reason for making you a year behind in college.</p>
<p>It takes a lot for someone to lose all of their parental rights.
I wonder if you would be better off living in a dorm than living with your dad.
It might neutralize your mother's opposition and still allow you to see your dad whenever you want, while preserving a stable place for you to live and study.</p>
<p>I think everyone is being pretty harsh when we don't know the situation. What we do know is most young people will want to get to know a parent they have not known, no matter what the situation. As an 18 year old the OP has a right to go where he likes. His mom and stepdad have a right to worry about, but not to control, him.</p>
<p>Ah, but his mom & step dad also have the right not to pay or even to provide financial data on FAFSA, thus is might be smarter to try to work this out amicably.</p>
It takes a lot for someone to lose all of their parental rights.
I wonder if you would be better off living in a dorm than living with your dad.
It might neutralize your mother's opposition and still allow you to see your dad whenever you want, while preserving a stable place for you to live and study.
Not true at all, regarding parental rights. You are insinuating that the OP's dad had to do something pretty terrible to wind up having no parental rights, which is probably not the case. In the current state of child custody decisions, the mother almost always is automatically given full parental rights and if the father wants custody, he must sue for it. Child custody is heavily biased against fathers.</p>
<p>Also, if money is the issue, room and board may be out of the question, and it seems like a decent plan to live with family.</p>
<p>Good luck to the OP. I'm not sure about the legal issues, so sorry I couldn't make any input there.</p>