If you can stay in high school another year, that gives you a chance to make a new college application list based on financial considerations:
Safeties:
Reaches:
Have your parents indicated that they would borrow a Parent Plus loan? Your spreadsheet mentions Plus loans. My experience working with Arabic students has been that many parents will not borrow. It’s important that you know where your parents stand on that, if your plans include Plus loans.
Parents lived through the Iranian revolution so their faith is a bit broken haha, they’ve said they’ll borrow (my dad has said specifically he’s more inclined to borrow than pay a lump sum even if they’re at same cost) and I’ve kept them informed on everything that goes on in the spreadsheet so we’re safe there.
Here are a few options for you to consider:
Take a serious look at your local community college and transfer options from there. It sounds like you’ll have some good options.
Texas Tech: With your 1500 SAT and qualifying as the top 10% of your class, you can get $9,000 from Texas Tech’s Presidential Merit Scholarship AND in-state residency for tuition purposes. That leaves about $2,852 for tuition and $10,460 for room & board bring direct costs to $13,312. “All merit awards are guaranteed for students admitted by May 1. Deadline to accept the award is May 1.”
Louisiana Tech: Their scholarship page says " incoming freshmen should apply for admission by the priority deadline of January 15 of their senior year". Should does not mean must, and you could probably argue about whether your third year was your senior year. If they determine that you qualify (i.e. if they still have any money left over) then you would get $9500/year plus in-state tuition. Louisiana Tech is on the quarter system, so when you look at its costs per quarter you really need to multiply by three to get the costs for the academic year. As a shortcut, I’m using the latest amounts in IPEDS data, but SY22-23 was $10,065 for tuition & fees (so you’d have about $565 in tuition to pay) plus $9447 for room & board, so about $10k all-in here.
U. of Louisiana - Lafayette: There’s no mention of a deadline for scholarships, but it does say students must meet standardized test requirements by May 31, 2023, so I think this may still be open. You would qualify for its most generous scholarship which covers room & board, $1300/semester, in-state tuition, and a campus work-study job. According to a parent on CC whose child received the scholarship, costs are about $8k after this scholarship.
Another possible school to consider is Weber State in Utah. You would qualify for a $9k/year scholarship and so when you take a look at the costs, it would cost about $8065 for tuition & fees plus room & board coasts that range between $5216-11,500. So costs could end up being just over $13k here, depending on what’s included in that least expensive room & board plan.
My niece graduated from Louisiana Tech. She is from the Midwest and majored in English & Women’s Studies. It may seem odd that she went to that school, given her background and academic interests. She went because it was most affordable option. She made very good friends from all over the country - students who attended LTU for the same reasons she did. She has never regretted her choice.
@Ramlord You are juggling a lot for a 16-17 year old. And I appreciate your openness on this thread and the way you communicate with the posters trying to understand your situation and help you. Hugs to you.
I won’t suggest any more schools as I think you have enough to consider. Also because my opinion is that you should push harder with your school district to stay in high school for your senior year. I have never heard of a school system forcing a kid to graduate early, but I am not from CA. I do understand that CA allows dual enrollment at no or low cost to high school students. You could spend your senior year working towards an associates degree on the state’s dime, not your family’s. That would give you another year to plan out college applications with the new knowledge of your budget, you would have significant credits to transfer (saving more $ on your undergrad), you could save more $, etc.
One thing I have noticed in your thread is you seem remarkably mature and pragmatic. IMO the most practical course would be to stay in high school and give yourself time to approach college differently so that you can complete your undergrad with no loans (or no more than the federal student loans of $27k). You absolutely have the ability to do that given time to plan a bit better than you were allowed this year.
Please update us. There are a lot of people on CC rooting for you.
I believe I asked this upthread, and maybe you answered and I missed it…but why did you make the decision to graduate from high school early?
I agree that you need to look into options that would include staying in HS for your senior year, taking DE courses…and maybe a fun elective (my kids aren’t from CA, but both took culinary arts their senior year…and loved it. They also continued to play their instrument in the HS ensembles).
I am confused by a lot of this - but maybe it is just too early on a Sun morning for me 
You have $35K in cash which is “significantly more in cash than my parents do”. You made $40K (plus whatever your parents made) and your EFC is $38K? Seems high unless your parents made quite a bit. (One of the files you attached said you were not low income.)
Are you going to a public high school or private? (I have never heard of a school making a student graduate early.)
Ortho surgery is surgery and usually covered by healthcare insurance not dental insurance.
There are no in-state CA school that you would be accepted at with 3.95 GPA and a 33 ACT??
Are you international? I think you said you were born in the US, but your writing feels international.
Don’t pick a school base on a monthly payment (that is like buying a car based on it’s monthly payment versus the price you are paying for the car).
What can you afford/year for school?
Do not get yourself and/or your parents into a mountain of debt!
I feel like you are spending a lot of time trying to finagle numbers and appealing to schools to make them work somehow, but maybe you should focus on finding schools that are a better fit financially (and staying in HS would give you time to do that).
You can’t say to a school that you ran a 6 figure business, that you are not low income, and your EFC is $38K, but you need more financial aid. The numbers don’t add up.)
I would invest your savings into your education (most isn’t eligible for a Roth IRA anyway) and pin your parents down in terms of what they’ll contribute. If it is $12k per year (as you indicated above) and you add $8k from your savings plus another $5k in a loan that gives you a budget of around $25k. Do any of your schools come in around that number? If not, you will need to apply to any schools that are still open for applications that might meet that #, pursue a CC option or take a 4th year of HS and reapply with a hard budget number to guide your applications (and you may make more $$ to add to savings during that time).
Cal poly Pomona was listed as an acceptance and would come in right around 25k. It’s about 1.5 hours from Santa Monica and it seems like what all other options should be compared against. With enough DE credits, finishing in three years may be possible.
Good suggestions from others so far.
+1 on getting more apps in to potentially expand options. Utah would be a great option, and others in Utah as mentioned (Utah State has good merit options.
It’s fine to try to get more FA but I think you need to accept that you’ll need to use your savings for college. It’s a good investment.
Let’s drop the excel spreadsheet and just focus on big, raw numbers.
You have 35k in savings, it’s very reasonable for a CS major to take full student loans (~27k), and there’s the AOTC which you indicate your parents can take (2.5kx4=10k).
That’s around 70k.
Assume 5k/year net income from work (for a CS student getting CS internships, that is extremely conservative; 20k/summer in the final few years is reasonable but you can’t count on it). That’s another 20k.
So that’s 90k without any contributions from your parents. That’s 22.5k/year.
Seems like if you can find something in the 25-30k/year range it’d be manageable. Maybe CP-SLO or some of these other options will hit that target.
If your parents have a healthy retirement fund, that’s an additional plus as they can pull from that to help out. Do they have that?
Anyway, I’d keep getting apps in to expand options but then I’d step back and think big picture.
OP – there are still colleges that are taking applications, so you are not limited to what you have currently applied to.
The OP listed admission to CPP and is waiting for CPSLO, but both of these are likely to be too expensive due to being out of reasonable commuting range. Of the ones within reasonable commuting range (that could be affordable if the OP’s parents continued to subsidize living at home and commuting), the OP was rejected from UCLA and did not apply to CSUN or CSULA.
Just got around to reading through all of this,
@DramaMama2021 Thanks for the advice!
@thumper1 I’d wanted to graduate early for a while, but I’d assumed that I’d be given the choice of staying were I to not have any viable options around now, obviously it turned out to be different, but seeing that I was still outpacing people in the grade above me by a large margin I thought I was solid enough to at least get my major at CPP or maybe get CP SLO. Parents also had avoided the money issue like I mentioned earlier so I didn’t know how fully constrained I was in my options.
@RookieCollegeMom Basically my parents savings were drained because of COVID, since my dad’s income was cut by 30% and our costs rose by much more than that, his income is still in a high range(mid 100k range) but our expenses outpace that by a lot, so their savings dwindled from being over double mine to a fraction of it. I go to a public school, and for insurance I was there when the processing happened and it fell under our dental insurance which wouldn’t cover it. In my current situation there’s none that either still take applications in state, or are at least worth the price they charge. E.g. SFSU is 27k/yr plus an extreme housing market around it, so if I lost housing for a year my cost would skyrocket. While UMN is 33k/yr with much cheaper housing and COL, and has a significantly better CS & Biz program that would get me my masters as well at a fraction of the cost of getting a full time MBA. I’m not international at all, my parents immigrated over 20 years ago, but they taught me farsi and english side by side which might’ve affected my writing style.
For the monthly payment, I’m forced to go off of that because my parents are doing the same, they plan on borrowing a PLUS loan no matter what (unless my loan covers it obviously) to keep their cashflow somewhat stable, so that’s the number I end up showing them along with the final paid amount incl interest.
What can you afford/year for school?
15k/yr in loan payments or as a lump sum school payments
You can’t say to a school that you ran a 6 figure business, that you are not low income, and your EFC is $38K, but you need more financial aid. The numbers don’t add up.)
Living in California, I think we 100% can, our COL is insanely high and I’ve told fin aid offices I’m shuttering my businesses and that I personally am also facing a loss of income.
@Thorsmom66
Got it, sounds like a idea thanks!
@parentkeith
I almost jumped on CPP but they didn’t give me my major, I have connections in their CS department to maybe get a transfer but I’m still a bit uncomfortable committing to a school without first having my major or at least a viable shot at my major in order.
@politeperson
My parents have large balances in their funds, but for a retirement fund they’re pretty small since they’re not old accounts (started 18 years ago iirc), so I’m trying to keep them from pulling from that to not jeopardize them more,
Is there some small class you can drop, so that your grad requirements aren’t met and you automatically get another year of HS? In your situation, it seems like a win-win to take the additional year and take all the DE classes you can, while still qualifying as a freshman applicant next year. Applying as a senior, with test scores, could put you in a much better position for merit next year. (Did you take the PSAT this year? Any chance of NMSF or Commended status?)
Your interests sound like the Raikes School at UNL - a selective, cohort honors program - might be a good fit https://raikes.unl.edu/ UNL gives a lot of merit discounts off of its relatively-affordable OOS price, so it might end up in the same affordable range as UMN and the CSU’s.
Forget an MBA. It’s a waste to get that immediately. You need to work at least two years after graduating to make it work.
It seems like your finances, on paper, are stronger than described for college purposes.
I don’t see how, given the rush timing, and that you want to leave hs - how community college isn’t your best bet. In California, there’s no negative connotation with this at all.
I had until yesterday to drop my English class at my CC, which would’ve derailed my pathway, but outside of that no other class is droppable/damaging to graduation requirements. I took the PSAT and had a 1440 / 218 index
Is 218 nmsf ? I think CA index is higher. If so, there are schools for free or near free.
@Ramlord you need to totally rethink what you are doing now. It sounds like your parents are willing to take a Parent Plus loan, but they really shouldn’t do that either. With proper planning and advisement, you should be able to find an affordable option without the Plus Loan.
First…I’d go straight to the top about remaining at your current school for the fourth year.
Second, I would looks very seriously at the community college to four year transfer option…and especially where you can commute.
Third, it’s end of March and you are scrambling to find additional colleges to apply to. That is very rushed, in my opinion.
Fourth, what is wrong with a gap year? YOU are the one who controls your internal motivation…and if it’s to get you to an affordable college, that should be sufficiently motivating.