<p>Well I am going on to my second year of community college and I am just starting the application process for Fall08. It is very important to me to go out of state to college. I am applying to Penn State and University of Colorado- Boulder. Getting accepted isn't my worry, but money is. I have to pay for college on my own... both of my parents combined income is 110-130k. Do public Universities offer out of state students any financial aid?? It is very important to me, is there any way I can prove that I am the one who has to pay back the loans and pay for all of my expenses? Or do the Financial Aid officers not care?</p>
<p>It's very hard to get money from out of state public institutions. Virtually no public institutions can guarantee to meet the documented financial need of even their in-state students, the ones they have the strongest obligation to since those are taxpayers.</p>
<p>You usually can find out about college's financial aid policies by chcking thei web sites. The U.S. News college guide, which you can gain on-line access to for $15 from mid Aug. to mid Aug of the next year, also gives breakdowns of the kind of aid colleges get: percentage of need met; percetage of that aid in loans,e tc. </p>
<p>It also can be hard to get aid from any college as a transfer student.</p>
<p>Colleges won't care that you will have to pay back loans and pay for your expenses. What they will care about is your parents' income, and typically people at your parents' income level are expected to pay the full costs of college.</p>
<p>Northstarmom is correct. Unless you qualify as an independant for financial aid purposes (aged 24 or over, married, providing 50% of the support for a dependant, member of armed forces etc) then your parents financial information is required by colleges and will be used to calculate the parent portion of the EFC. With the income you are reporting, even with no assets, the parent EFC will be 30,000 plus so you will not qualify for federal grants or probably anything much in the way of aid.</p>
<p>If finances are a big concern you should also apply to an instate college so that you have a fallback if/when you find the out of state option may not be practical. You are looking at probably an enormous amount of debt if you are even able to borrow such an amount.</p>