<p>Community college is still an option. You don’t go to community college to take major courses; you go to CC to take your general education requirements at a low cost in preparation to transfer to a 4-year college or university where you would then complete your major in earnest. Most community colleges offer Spanish, if you are interested in that; depending on the location they may offer a range of other languages.</p>
<p>Are you a CA resident? If you are, the CA state colleges are reasonable, although you may want to add more CSUs to your list.</p>
<p>George Washington and NYU are two of the most expensive schools in the country, and they are notorious for bad financial aid. Without parental help (or gift aid from somewhere else), and especially with you being a below-average applicant for both schools, you can’t expect much aid from either of them. If you are a CA resident, you are also OOS for Pitt, so you can’t expect much aid from them either. And with a Swiss school, I don’t know how you expect to pay for student visa fees and international fees.</p>
<p>@Sean518x: My parents didn’t pay for college. I got a scholarship; my brother didn’t go to college; and my sister goes to a regional public university and pays for it with loans. I was the first person in my family to attend college, so it was not the norm to save for a college fund. I think that it’s uncommon in working-class families for parents to pay for college - they simply can’t afford it. And I think even in many middle-class families, students tend to go to public universities on a combination state funding, student loans, and maybe a kick-in from the parents. I’ve noticed that in addition to being a particularly high-achieving set of students, CC students also tend to come from wealthier families, and I think there it’s a cultural norm for parents to pay for most or all of college. But in my working-class background, it’s definitely not, and for my middle-class friends, they may get some aid from their parents, but not all. My mom gave me a $100 a month allowance for my first semester in college, as a reward for paying for it myself, and it was like the best gift she could’ve possibly given me - and she struggled to give even that to me, until I got a job second semester.</p>