Drexel U is a great school with a great co op program, but it is expensive. It uses the CSS profile to determine financial need and calculate your efc. My D applied for Fall 2016. Her FAFSA efc was roughly $20k. Drexel calculated a $30k efc., way too high for our family.
You will not get big scholarship $ from Drexel as a transfer, and your Drexel efc will likely be even higher than your FAFSA efc.
Your parents’ budget is limited, and you need to look at affordable schools which fit that budget, most likely your state schools. Luckily, you have great options in NY. If you work hard at your studies, you will have internship opportunities wherever you go. Your degree and career should be the “dream”.
What is your major? Is there the chance that another campus has a significantly better program for that?
Even if Albany’s tuition and fees are higher than at some of the other SUNYs, your family will almost certainly save money if you continue to live at home. To begin with, there won’t be a bill for housing. If your family normally cooks from scratch, and you brown-bag your lunches, it is likely that your food bill will be much less than if you go away for your education. When Happykid graduated from her CC and transferred to her state U, she didn’t have any commuting distance option. Our expenses went way up because of the tuition, fees, and housing. What we saved by not feeding her at home pretty much offset the cost of feeding her there.
I can also understand what your parents are saying about your job. You do have a job now - even if you don’t like it much. There is no way to know how long it will take to get an equivalent job (let alone a better one) in a different community. That is also something to keep in mind.
I don’t think there’s much chance that you’ll convince your parents to send you to Drexel. The question is whether you can convince them to pay for you to go somewhere other than SUNY Albany. It sounds like that will be your least expensive option because you can live at home and commute. And it sounds like maybe your parents are looking for the least expensive option. Just because they have an EFC of $31,000 does not mean they can afford to pay that much, and even if they can, it doesn’t mean they’re willing to.
I think what you need to figure out is whether this is a financial issue or something else. Ask your parents whether, if you could find an option that cost the same as SUNY Albany, they would pay for that. Try to find out how much they can/are willing to pay. Then you can look to see if there are schools that fit that budget. You’ll also need some compelling reasons why another school that fits the budget is better for you than Albany. It may be strength of major, internship opportunities in the area, availability of something of interest to you that Albany lacks, etc. You’ll need to do your homework and make a case.
So your parents are paying zero now (and presumably want to pay the same for Albany). If you are not able to get free tuition, will your grandfather be able to help with the costs?
You need to forget Drexel and make sure you at least have somewhere to go.
Your parents simply can’t afford to send you to Drexel so you may as well come to that realization now. I can understand you wanting to move out to go to school so I will offer you this advice. Apply to Albany to see if you are offered free tuition. If you get free tuition the decision is made. If you don’t you can provide them a list of schools with the same cost as Albany. Money never seems like a big deal when someone else is paying.
You have what’s known as “Champagne taste on a beer budget.”
You can afford SUNY Albany.
If, for some reason that’s intolerable, you need to:
- Come up with a list of schools with a bottom line equal to Albany’s
- Come up with the difference in funding.
The EFC is a number that is derived from income and some assets. That doesn’t mean your parents necessarily have $31K in a bank somewhere. That just means that your parents need to give up something of value that is worth $31K every year. In our case, we have an EFC of ~$30K, so we would have to sell both of our cars to come up with the money. Our EFC “money” is mostly tied up in paying required state taxes.
If you want to go to Drexel, work until you can afford to pay for Drexel.
How to convince your parents:
Demonstrate maturity.
What is your major?
@sybbie719 can you please explain the SUNY tuition initiatives. It would help the rest of us understand if this student truly is not eligible for any of them (I was thinking of the STEM one in particular).
@thumper1, To qualify for the [NYS STEM scholarship](NYS Higher Education Services Corporation - NYS Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Incentive Program) a student has to be in the top 10% of their graduating class. The Excelsior Scholarship is good for any SUNY and major, but the income limit is $100k this year and $125k next year. I think OP’s EFC puts them above the income limit.
@Welchi98, I don’t see how you can swing a $60k/year college. It’s not a matter of convincing your parents to “help you out with your decision.” Spending $60k-$120k of your parents’ money isn’t a decision you get to make. If your parents can and will help you pay anything for school, that’s great. The decision you get to make is to come up with ideas for how to best spend the money they can give you. If they can’t afford to help, then you need to make plans based on that.
Will they pay the $6500 SUNY tuition? As a junior and senior you can take the $7500/year federal student loan. If your parents will contribute $6500, that would give you $14k. If you work summers you can probably earn ~$3k/year. That gives you $17k. If you work part-time during the year you may be able to swing dorming at SUNY for your last 2 years. If you can find a school that offers aid to transfers, you may be able to stretch your dollars further. The more time you spend trying to figure out how you can turn your parents’ $6500 into 10x that amount is time you’re not spending on finding affordable options. Start by asking them if they’ll contribute the $6500 if you can find a school that covers the rest of the costs. You may find it’s just the $31k or $60k that has them worried. If you start talking about reasonably priced schools, they may feel comfortable spending a little more.
OP is not eligible for the STEM scholarship because like @austinmshauri stated, student would have to had been in the top 10% of the graduating class and needed to apply as an incoming freshman.
With an EFC of 30k, it is highly unlikely that the family meets the income requirements for the Excelsior scholarship.
Hudson has a number of articulation agreements
http://www.hvcc.edu/catalog/career_transfer/articulation.html
You gotta learn how to take your lemons and make lemonade
If your parents are willing to pay tuition, perhaps you can use some of your savings from your job to room off campus while you attend Albany.
finish your community college so that when you do transfer you transfer the degree and you do not lose any credits. , Continue to save your money from your job. If you can take out your loan for sophomore year, take it out, bank it. Then you will have your savings and $6500 from sophomore year to help defray the cost of living in the dorms in your junior year, Take out your junior year loan, keep working to help pay the cost of you living in the dorms senior year
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I want to get out of the house, I want to go on my own <<
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you’re not on your own if you are going to school on your parents’ dime.
college room and board costs $10-$15K per year. so SUNY Albany will save your a parents a chunk of $$$ even if you do not get the free tuition.
of course if you do qualify for the free tuition, that makes SUNY Albany an absolute no-brainer.
i don’t see what your argument is. your parents have a solid plan for you to get your Bachelors from a good school, and you are upset that they won’t sink $130K-$140K into two years of Drexel?
i don’t think you will get a lot of sympathy for your perspective on this forum.
98 – most college kids in the U.S. are commuters. You’ve got plenty of company among kids who (for family financial reasons) have to live at home, work part-time, and attend a local college. That’s what I had to do.
If you are really angling for the away-from-home experience (which I myself wanted but could not afford) you should probably look at another SUNY to keep the cost delta as low as possible. Maybe you could convince your folks to finance two years of room/board if the tuition was a wash.
If not, SUNY/Albany is a really good school. Make the best of it, do well, and you’ll be able to move away when you land a good job or a good spot in grad school. And years from now, you’ll be making enough $$$ that you’ll be able to send your kids away for the full college experience (like my lucky kids).
Good luck.