<p>Halflokum is right. It will be very tough to find a school that you can realistically afford with Federal loans alone. My son is currently trying to pay for his own college and may make it this year because he has a full-tuition grant and an amazing summer job where if he works alot he can stash away 10-thousand dollars. But his room and board is an estimated 15K. He may make it. He may not. And if not we will figure it out, but you should know that a student cannot take out enough in loans to pay for most of these programs.</p>
<p>halflokum speaks the truth (and wow, Flossy, very impressed with your son!) i can’t remember what your stats are, but if they are excellent you may be able to get merit aid based on those. Talent scholarships for acting are great, but they are not readily available at many schools and rarely cover full tuition. If you parents are not going to help and you plan to take only federal loans, you should certainly have a local, in-state safety lined up. Remember also that commuting from home, while not as much fun as living on campus) can save you about $60K over four years.</p>
<p>Marylandchick is a transfer student, so merit aid will be limited, unfortunately. </p>
<p>MD state schools are likely to be the most affordable, and will allow you to transfer your CC credits, relatively easily. I believe the MD state schools suggested to you for theatre this past summer were UMBC, UMCP, and Towson? If I remember correctly you liked UMBC the best out of these three?</p>
<p>Wonderful that you parents are bring more supportive! That will take a huge stress off. Now, to look for schools that you like, accept transfer students for theatre (and will allow you to graduate in a reasonable amount of time), and are affordable!</p>
<p>Go back through the previous suggestion made to you on older threads in terms of schools. If I remember correctly there was a lot of great advice there… great place to start! :)</p>
<p>Flossy: that’s awesome for your S! Care to share what kind of job he has that enables him to earn that much in the summer? Would love to find something like that for my D!! :)</p>
<p>Sure! Lifeguard. Open water. He gets 15 bucks an hour, 40 - 45 hours a week plus overtime and double time on holidays. Pools pay less and are usually part-time but that’s where he started. Now, he works for a regional parks district at a big recreational lake. The training was rough but he really loves it. I’m slightly jealous.</p>
<p>^^My son too! He earns slightly more per hour and he worked open water this summer as well. But yes the training is serious and needs to be which is why they are paid better than minimum wage. My son (who is a hs senior) will start college with a much bigger stash than my thespian daughter was able to amass making smoothies. Though she was also a competitive swimmer, her theatre commitments conflicted with the lifeguard training and work schedule. In the end, both kids went or will go off to college having worked to contribute what they could so it’s all good.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing----excellent summer jobs for your sons Flossy and Halflokum! Always good when the kids can contribute to their astronomical tuition and fees! :)</p>
<p>Okay, I am back…had to go off the radar…anyway, I know BYUI would award good aid so I am looking at them pretty seriously, UMD as well… any other suggestions?</p>
<p>Are you still looking at UMBC? They offer a number of theater scholarships including one that can cover the full tuition. [Theatre</a> at UMBC](<a href=“http://www.umbc.edu/theatre/scholarships_info.html]Theatre”>http://www.umbc.edu/theatre/scholarships_info.html)</p>
<p>As you probably know, Baltimore has a lot of theater happening so it’s an exciting place to be a young theater artist. I think you might be very pleasantly surprised by the experience you could have at UMBC.</p>