<p>I'm a freshman in college living at home with my parents and hopefully my next move would be to go down to SBCC and finish out my last year there and then transfer to <em>fingerscrossed</em> Cal Poly, UCLA or the CSU for LA. I applied for federal aid but the EFC was 24,297, which is funny because SBCC's estimated cost to attend for someone who is living away from home is about 17,320... so theoretically my parents should be able to pay for my entire tuition, housing, books, etc. and then some. unfortunately this isn't true, between paying bills and paying anything else that's needed like groceries and whatnot, there isn't much that they can give me. I work part-time at Starbucks and have a car bill of about 300 a month so i don't have a lot of wiggle room either which is why i applied for aid in the first place. I don't understand why they can't take that into consideration. Just because my parents have the money that doesn't mean the can or will help me. I'm working on applying to some calgrants and scholarships but based of the fafsa, I don't think I'm going to be getting much from them. I don't know if i can get financial aid from the school either considering it doesn't look like i have "need" for it. At this point I feel like even if I did stay home to save money, I wouldn't have enough to transfer to a 4 year anyways, fafsa wouldn't be able to help me either. I'm really confused about what I'm supposed to do, I know I can take out loans but I don't really want to do that for such a large amount of money.</p>
<p>*i don’t have a lot of wiggle room either which is why i applied for aid in the first place. I don’t understand why they can’t take that into consideration. Just because my parents have the money that doesn’t mean the can or will help me. I’m working on applying to some calgrants and scholarships but based of the fafsa, I don’t think I’m going to be getting much from them. *</p>
<p>Believe me, if parents could just say “we don’t have any money to spend on college so give my child aid,” then all parents would do that. </p>
<p>The primary responsibility to pay for college rests with the family. There is very limited and small grants for low income people because they have no other means. </p>
<p>I’m sorry that your family didn’t plan for your college, but that’s not the colleges fault.</p>
<p>Finish at your CC and then transfer to a Cal State that you can commute to. You can pay for it with student loans.</p>
<p>Is there a specific program at SBCC that you can’t get at your local community college, that would cause you to need to move there? Cost of living in Santa Barbara is really high, and I don’t see the point of moving away from home for community college. In California, at least, they’re pretty much all of relatively equal quality and experience.</p>
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<p>Most college freshmen do NOT have $300/month car payments…maybe you need to readjust your priorities? Fwiw, it doesn’t sound like your parents have made your education a priority item either, so you really have to. Transferring to a CC that’s not within commuting distance doesn’t sound like a cost-effective plan. I don’t think you’re going to qualify for state aid, though I’m not very familiar with the various CalGrant programs.</p>