<p>Is it possible that i receive any form of financial aid? My parents make over 250,000 a year, however have stated they wont help pay for any of my college education because that's the way it was for them. Do i have any chance?</p>
<p>You could try to get some merit scholarships</p>
<p>At that income level, you won’t get enough aid to pay for college without help unless it is a large merit award, or you live at home and go to a very inexpensive college. </p>
<p>Your parents may need to realize that college costs have exploded since they were students and it’s not realistic to pay for college with no help these days.</p>
<p>You can talk to your school counselor and ask if he will meet with your parents and you and to lay out the situation in terms of college choices. Do they have any ideas on where they think you should be going to college? My father worked for the DOD when I was in high school and as a result got free tuition for all of us with the college that contracted with them, as he was a liason. As far as he was concerned, that was how all of his kids were going to get their college educaitons. Anything else, we had to figure out ourselves. My neighbor feels that his daughters can commute to a local SUNY and work part time. And they can for very little. Is there a local option that your parents are thinking you can attend? </p>
<p>You will likely be permitted to borrow up to $5500 in Stafford loans your freshman year, which will cover most community college and local state school options. You can also look at Momfromtexas 's old thread on full ride scholarships and look for something that will pay most of your way. When they fill out the FAFSA for you to get eligibility for the Stafford, a parental EFC will be calculated and they can see how much the colleges, pretty much at minimum expect them to pay, and they you are not eliigible for financial aid for that reason.</p>
<p>Research and show that when your parents were in college, it was affordable without parental help, but that is no longer the case. Your parents are rich. They can afford to pay for you. Tell them you are willing to work, do work/study, look for scholarships and grants, and/or get a loan.</p>
<p>Hopefully you’re not a senior so there’s time to find schools that might work for you.</p>
<p>It sounds (to me) that your parents are in a situation where they don’t have a lot of money leftover each month to pay for college. Maybe their mortgage is very high, or they have committed to other financial obligations. Often when affluent parents won’t help pay or say “I paid, so you can pay,” it’s just a cover because they know they can’t pay or don’t want to make any adjustments in their lifestyle.</p>
<p>Or it could just be a case where either the parents aren’t aware of college costs or they don’t think you’re a strong enough student to justify spending more than the cost of commuting to a local school - which they think is low enough for you to pay for with student loans and a part time job and a summer job.</p>
<p>There are a number of parents who see little value in “going away” to school, so they won’t pay for that.</p>
<p>Your parents are rich. They can afford to pay for you. Tell them you are willing to work, do work/study, look for scholarships and grants, and/or get a loan.</p>
<p>We really don’t know if the parents can afford to pay. If the parents money is too tied up, or one/both won’t make changes to enable affordability, then rationally showing them that work, loans, etc won’t be enough to pay to go away to college will fall on deaf ears. Their answer would just be: commute to your local CC and then transfer to the local state school.</p>
<p>If this student isn’t a senior, then with strong stats he might be able to snag a large enough merit scholarship to cover most of college. For this student, a “half tuition” or similar scholarship will not be enough. He’d need at least a full tuition scholarship or more.</p>
<p>OP…You can only borrow $5500 for frosh year. That’s not much. </p>
<p>Tell us more about your situation.</p>
<p>Thanks for correcting me again, mom2collegekids. I forget some people don’t handle things well. With 250,000 a year, I hope they have savings.</p>
<p>lcopp11 -</p>
<p>I have young relatives whose parents had a policy like this one. Kid1 used his own earnings and savings, and some student loans to attend an in-state public U. He graduated with only the debt permitted for federal loans. Kid2 found a small LAC that would give her a big merit scholarship, and likewise did it all on her own with earnings, savings, and federal loans. Both are safely launched in life, and are paying down those loans. If you need to do it all on your own, you can.</p>
<p>Beolein, the problem is that it is not the student’s money. When it comes right down to it, he has NO say as to whether his parents will pay for college or not. If they say they won’t, even if they have the money, there are no rights to getting it. Yet the college will not take that as a reason to be eligible for financial aid. This happens a lot. Sometimes the parents will flat out even refuse to fill out the forms so the kid has trouble even getting a Stafford loan.</p>
<p>This happens all of the time with divorced families. Why college payments are not spelled out to a tee in divorce agreements, I don’t know, but many times they are not even mentioned. NCP could be wealthy and remarried and living it up to every cent and refuses to pay for college. My good friend’s husband just would not pay. Said his kids could go to the local state U and commute and he would buy them car to do so, but not one dime he would pay and PA state laws end support at age 18.</p>
<p>Happymom, nice if a student has any savings or earnings. Here in my state, a sleep away experience starts at $20K a year. The Stafford loans don’t put a dent in that one. Fortunately, there are a lot of loacal options and those are under the cost of the Staffords. But I also live in an area where there is a lot of public transportation available, high population density, so one can find rides to a college more easily than other places. My cousins are hard put to go to college, find a job where they live unless they get a car. One gets completely helpless 18 year olds graduating from high school with few options since gettting any where is not easy. Without some parental help, it can be difficult indeed.</p>