I absolutely agree with @mmrose
“But…with all this…I really don’t think you are going to find what you are looking for at an undergraduate college in the US. I think you will spend a lot of time, and all of your savings, getting a degree that does not create the contacts and excitement about your project that you are hoping for. I hope I am wrong, and would like to know if other experience posters on this forum share my concern.”
Plus, you are being extremely naive in considering living with a bunch of young 18 to 22 year olds who have varying goals and personal needs.
Additionally, you want full funding, including funding for clothing and phones! Where do you think you will actually be accepted where they will give you stipends for your clothing and phone?
As a person who speaks a couple of languages, and as a “second language speaker”, the part that I like in learning a new language is what’s involved in the culture. It’s all the little nuances with how you speak the language with native speakers. Maybe I’m just very unintelligent but I just have no interest in learning something like Esperanto.
That’s just me.
Now you’re looking to recruit students, to be on a team with you, to have YOUR needs met at a university. Good luck with that.
Those thousands of kids from ages 18 to 22 have their own goals. These are egocentric kids. They are not going to suddenly realize that they need to drop their goals, to join you in some effort that won’t pay any viable salary nor financially support their future dreams.
A large number of students are supported by middle-class parents, who may have saved monies or are borrowing funds and possibly struggle to put their children through school so that their child can be self-supporting.
Plus I don’t know what you’ve seen in movies but it’s not like what you pretend on your post. College kids, for the most part, live in shared, small rooms. Depending on the college, they usually have a bed and a desk for each student in the room. A number of dorms have separate bathing and shower facilities. They generally eat their meals in a separate building. They are learning how to live with others and learning how to navigate the college system. They may or may not like their roommates. When they need to talk to someone they will go to their cell phones and sometimes they talk to their Resident Assistants RA’s (who are no older than they are).
If you come in harping on what you’re going to do and trying to recruit people for your “mission”, they’re going to be polite but run from you like the plague. Not everyone is into linguistics and they won’t care that you need them.
I think that’s what you don’t understand about a US university or college education. It is not for you to control the environment around you and make everyone conform to your standards, but for you to learn new things in a new environment.
You already have your plan and you’ve already imagined how it’s going to go, and you’ve already imagined how successful it will be so try it now and then wait to be asked by linguistics specialists to be a visiting professor somewhere.
Otherwise, why bother to go? I really don’t think an undergraduate education in the United States is a way for you to go because It doesn’t fit your idyllic needs. Prove your theory. I personally think you won’t consider what any linguistics department, at a US university would advise.
Agree with @collegemom3717 and @mmrose.