I graduated high school llast ago and found out I could not afford to go to a four year school, so I started taking classes at my local community college. I have a 3.87 gpa and 30 hours of honors credit, by this summer I will have 50 credits in total, and need to transfer now. The problem is my mom makes roughly 12,000 dollars a year and she cannot co-sign for a loan for me due to her having only a visa and no citizenship. My father could however, he is still wanted for 10 years of child support and is not found. I am a U.S citizen and receive a pell grant, but I do not think it will be enough to cover even one semester of classes. I have applied for all the scholarships I can, joined honors programs, and received nothing. Anyone have ideas?
Did you apply for the Jack Kent Cooke Transfer Scholarship? There don’t tend to be institutional scholarships/significant aid for transfers in the same way that there often is for high school seniors, but JKCF is very generous. Worth a shot.
If there is a state university close to your home you can commute. You can also get a loan on your own if necessary. You can work on/off campus as well.
Sadly, the JKCF scholarship is closed now. The commute is one hour and thirty minutes one way, plus my car can barley make it to the current community college without breaking down. I am only 18 years old, jobless, and do not have any cosigners, loans are out of the picture. I also thought about a job, but taking engineering courses and making good grades is very hard as is!
I would suggest that you get a job and save money. I know this will delay your schooling but it will get you there eventually.
You should,look for a school with an engineering co-op program. Once you get enough courses completed in engineering, you would attend school one term, and then work a co-op job the next…continuing to do so until you complete your degree.
This is what my husband did. And it did take a long time…but his co-op earnings paid his costs for the following term.
You may have to relocate to do this. Perhaps,you could get a job someplace with public transportation…and rent just a room.
Or by any chance do you have any relatives who live closer to a college?
State of residency?
It would be desirable to reach 60 credits with prerequisites for your desired major(s) complete as best as you can by the time you transfer.
?
What state are you in?
What kind of aid pkg did you get from your instate publics?
You need to apply next year for a transfer.
What schools did you apply to when you were a high school senior?
I would think instate publics would be the best help for you.
I am in Texas and have no relatives in college. I received 500.00 from a donor and a Pell grant at the current community college. I did not even bother paying application fees during my senior year, knowing me and my mom could barley afford living as is. I have taken most prerequisite courses for engineering offered and plenty of basics. Someone in the college did help me pay my 50.00 application fee for the University of Houston (1:30 commute), visited was quoted a price of 19,000 after pell grant per year living on campus.
What was in that quote?
Have you tried running the Net Price Calculator for that college and any others you might be interested in yourself? [url=<a href=“http://www.uh.edu/financial/net-price-calculator/index.php%5DHere%5B/url”>http://www.uh.edu/financial/net-price-calculator/index.php]Here[/url] is the one for the University of Houston. It won’t be perfectly accurate as a transfer but you can use it to estimate your Pell eligibility as well as any state grants that Texas might have available.
Remember that you are only responsible for coming up with the tuition/fees and room and board up front when you enroll; the books and the personal expenses can be managed. You can buy books used and some professors will even make some available in the library. The personal expenses can be reduced from what they estimate depending on your lifestyle and spending habits. You can get a work/study job or a separate job to help with those costs, and by yourself (without a cosigner) you can borrow about $6500 or $7500 a year as an upperclassman from the federal government. You already have credits at a community college so that will save you money in the form of time.
You’re low income. Your app fees would have been waived with fee waivers from your GC.
You would have qualified for both fed and state aid, so I think you were given wrong info about costs. I think you also assumed too much. You would not have had to pay $19k after Pell at UH.
You need to run the net price calculators for various texas publics.
I don’t know if low income transfer students can get app waivers…anyone know?
I ran U Houston’s NPC with your info…
Estimated tuition and fees $8,401
- Estimated room and board charges
(Includes rooming accommodations and meals)
$8,912 - Estimated cost of books and supplies $1,200
- Estimated other expenses
(Personal expenses, transportation, etc.) $3,950
Estimated total cost of attendance: $22,463
- Estimated total grant aid:
(Includes both merit and need based grant and scholarship aid from Federal, State, or Local Governments, or the Institution)
$13,345
Estimated Net Price
After Grants and Scholarships: $9,118
Your net price after grants would be 9118.
then you would subtract your student loans (which now would be 7500), so your remaining costs would be less than 1500 which could be covered with a summer job.
You either misheard or someone told you wrong info.
There should be a Transfer Counselor at your CC whose whole job is just to help students get into good colleges and universities that they can afford. Go pay a visit to that person, and find out where students like you have been admitted in the past few years. There may be other local or regional scholarships for students with good grades that you could apply to as well as the JKCF.
Usually CC transfers find their best deals if they complete the full associates degree. It looks like you are on track to have that done by December or so. That would leave you plenty of time to research more transfer options for yourself.
You don’t have to live with a relative who is currently attending college. You can live with a relative who lived closer to a college. 1 1/2 hour commute is a long one.
Have you talked to the transfer advisor at your community college? If not…do that.
I believe the price given to me was initial, 19,000 because my financial aid takes time to be processed. My mom files he tax usually late, (still has not). Online tax retrieval does not work for her,and asking for a physical one to be mailed to the college takes weeks to arrive, and then must be matched. I applied for financial aid last year around March, did not receive my pell grant until early. When I visit again I will ask. However, thank you for the break down, making me feel much more optimistic.
Family reunions consist of me and my mom lol, don’t know many relatives.
I think when you start going to college you should encourage your mother to file her tax returns earlier. Waiting until April 14 is not illegal and is not a problem since you can use estimated numbers when filing FAFSA. However, it causes a lot of delays if you wait until everyone else does which can be a hassle for you.