<p>Take a look at these schools:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.workcolleges.org/[/url]”>http://www.workcolleges.org/</a></p>
<p>You could live on campus, and work your way through on your own.</p>
<p>on top of being great for spanish, santa barbera cc also helps you (financially) live near the campus</p>
<p>Wowser you have some expensive colleges on that list plus a bunch that are clear across the country from where you are and one in Europe! Now is not the time to establish your ideological separation from your parents with a wish list like this. Figure out what your priorities are. If in fact, it’s going it alone then you need to rethink your strategy. Kids that go it alone, and many do for a wide variety of reasons, do not consider expensive schools, do not consider schools on the other side of the country (or my gosh in Europe)…and unfortunately in the absence of a tuition fairy you’re probably going to have to do two years in a CC and transfer for your degree. You can do all this is California alot easier than other states. Sorry kiddo, but you need to seriously rethink your strategy one way or the other and make some decisions about priorities. And I apologize for being snarky…but don’t a huge number of people in California speak Spanish…surely you can pick up magazines in Spanish, download books in Spanish and find people to converse with??? Plus you’re going to need a summer job if you’re going it alone.</p>
<p>If you are interested in honorably serving your country, the Army has one of the greatest language institutes around, and if you have a talent for language, that may a perfect opportunity for you. You couls work in foreign countries, attend intensive language training and earn money for college upon discharge.
<a href=“http://www.goarmy.com/linguist/about/linguist.html[/url]”>http://www.goarmy.com/linguist/about/linguist.html</a></p>
<p>“Is it normal for parents to pay for school? The opinion on this forum seems to be that kids are entitled to having their parents pay for college but I don’t understand why that is.”</p>
<p>If by normal you mean most teenagers, or more than 50 percent of teenagers, I’d guess no.I don’t even think 50 percent of teenagers GO to college, at least not where I live. And where I live, most that do, go to a CCC. Some go to CSU’s and of course someto UC’s and privates, but most don’t.</p>
<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>
<p>MOST families do not have college savings funds for students. ALL students have to attend colleges that are within their financial means.</p>
<p>You know…it’s one thing to have ideological differences with your family (my guess is there are other kids who do too). It’s another thing when you make it such an issue that your parents don’t want to help you. Why would you do this?</p>
<p>I’m going to guess in the case of the OP it’s the difference between “Of course we will help you good child” and “Get out of here you godless heathen”. It sounds like (and I could be wrong) OP’s parents were planning to help with college costs and are now refusing because this religious difference has come up.</p>
<p>Yes, that is the OP’s perception, but it seems strange from a parent’s perspective. The OP originally had expectations that the parents would pay for college,and plans for summer travel, “but now that’s down the drain.” That says things were going pretty well up until recently. Unless there was some dramatic and sudden event, like a sudden renunciation of his family’s faith, it doesn’t make sense to attribute it to a religious difference.</p>
<p>To me, it seems more likely that the two parties are talking past one another. The parents may be saying, “we expect this, and you should be ready for that, and if you want to attend college, then …, or we can only fund CC, …, and by the way you should be in church, what’s wrong with you?”, and the student may be hearing “blah, blah, you heathen, blah, blah, blah.” </p>
<p>This kind of stuff happens all the time between parent and child. A parent might repeatedly emphasize a few core points that he or she views as fundamental, and all the child will hear is “no.” Of course, it also goes the other way. </p>
<p>But here the parents control the funding. So if the student wants that funding, it’s going to be incumbent on him to actually hear what the parents are saying.</p>
<p>Of course, both sides should be working on hearing each other anyway. You only have one family.</p>