Paying for College

Hi!
So I’m going into my Freshman year of college in August. I’m currently very lost as far as payment and stuff because my parents pretty much dropped me the second I turned 18 and I need help. The school I chose costs about $22,600 per semester, that’s literally the cheapest college around me offering the degree I want and it’s still a lot. I received about $8,000 total in federal loans and a small scholarship from the school. (yes, that’s all) I haven’t exactly been able to save a lot of money considering I’ve been a full time high school student paying for my own food and clothes and car and gas and rent. My parents have told me that I absolutely should not take out private loans. They wouldn’t let me take a gap year or I’m very lost as to how on earth I’m supposed to rack up the money to pay. Someone please tell me how on earth I do this?

If your parents are not going to give you any money towards college AND they won’t co sign or take loans for you, a $45,000 a year college is NOT affordable.

You can take a Direct Loan in your name only for $5500 a year. This will either pay for or come close to paying for community college tuition.

How have you been paying rent, clothes, car, gas and food? Do you not live at home? If you are covering all of your living costs, and tuition costs for college, I doubt you will be able to work enough hours to pay a $22,000 bill for each of the terms of college.

What happened that you are a self supporting 18 year old? Can your parents help,you…at all? Is there a community college you can commute to?

Goodness, I’m sorry I completely messed up my wording. It’s $22,600 A YEAR not semester. 44,000 is ridiculous, my bad.

My parents dropped me as soon as I got a job and even more so when I turned 18 because they no longer have to supply things for me apparently. They graciously allow me to live in their house until college because I turned 18 at the end of May, but I have to pay rent as well as buy my own things.

They won’t help me at all. My grandma has offered to let me live with her so I could commute. However, I’m not sure it was a serious offer AND It would still be a 45 minute drive there as well as 45 minutes back, and I’m not sure my current car could handle doing that daily.

Have you discussed college with your parents? You cannot come up with about $12k, which I’m guessing will a rock bottom minimum that you will need with the $8k loan and a $2600 scholarship.

What does that $22600 a year cover? Is it tuition only ? Is it tuition and room and board? There are almost always other expenses, like health insurance, books, supplies, personal necessities, travel.

Your college offered you more than the usual $5500 in freshman loans. What is that other $2500 in loans? How much is that small scholarship exactly?

Without that info, we cannot tell what your gap is Frankly, it does not look good. The most affordable, often the ONLY affordable option for college if parents refuse to pay anything, is to go to a local public school just as you did for high school. Hopefully, you can work out some supplementation from your parents like free or very low room and board payments, hopefully you can work part time, to take care of your commuting school expenses. And hopefully, the Direct loan ($5500) can cover most of the rest. A lot of young adults do some variation of this, often working full time and going to school part time. Your loan amount would be reduced if you go part time.

How did you expect to pay for college? You know that when it comes to financial aid, unless you are age 24, it’s very difficult to qualify as independent of your parents. Living with them even if you are paying rental quashes that Avenue. You knew as soon as you got your financial aid package, you had a gap, did you not?

There is no magic college money tree. When you apply to colleges, it’s important to have that fail safe plan, as you look at your financial aid and scholarship offers. You can get a good idea of what kind of aid you might get if you do the research.

If your parents “dropped you the second you turned 18” and you pay all your own expenses, your parents don’t then get to dictate how you should finance your education or whether or not you can take a gap year. (I’m not saying that private loans are necessarily a good idea.) It sounds like your parents want to retain control with no contribution or responsibilities on their part. That’s not normally how things work.

So your parents did not discuss any of this with you prior? Just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I assume your parents didn’t save any money for your education? Like what were they thinking?
It’s very strange and not typically normal that you would just turn 18 and their ready to cast you away.
I would have a sit down with them personally so you know what they expect of you going forward. I would make other living arrangements if this is how they treat their own daughter. Talk to your grandmother or friends family. Let your parents know you can’t afford college since they are giving you no help and you “are” talking a gap year. Like what do they expect you to do? How are you going to be able to pay for any college if you don’t have any money and if they just sprung this up on you???

What degree do you want? Are there cheaper colleges you could commute to from either your parent’s or your grandmother’s?

What does that 22,000 cost of attendance include? Everything?

What about attending community college for a few years and saving some money? That would also give you time to come up with a realistic plan for funding the rest of your education. Some of the community colleges have become state colleges as well and offer some bachelor degree programs.

How much do you pay in rent/car payment/car insurance/food now? How many hours a week are you working?

Most students who are paying their own way do not have a car and insurance to pay for. I was a very poor college student and I didn’t have a car until after I graduated. I did have some classmates who did have cars, but they lived at home and commuted. Usually it’s one or the other, live at school with no car or live at home (or in your case with your grandmother) and commute.

Students in my metro area have a bus/rail pass built into their school fees. MANY commute by light rail to various universities and community colleges around town.

How much are you earning per year? You may have to continue working full time and going to school part time.

The car was a bit of a puzzle to me too. Most high school kids cannot afford a car. Repairs, maintenance, insurance, gas, etc really adds up even if someone gave the car to you.

Not everyone lives where there is public transportation. A high school kid having a job in my area would pretty much have to have a car unless they just happened to live close enough to their job to walk.

Most traditional-age students “paying their own way” these days are receiving parental support for living at home and commuting costs (sometimes including use of a parent owned car).

But it is a choice the OP may have to make. One of my kids had a job and she either had to get a ride or walk the 2.5 miles. There was no public transportation at all where we lived.

The reason mine had no cars was the insurance rates were insane for them, so they delayed getting licenses. It really was a choice of paying for car insurance or saving for college and we chose college. While at college, they lived and worked on campus or very nearby.

This is a family issue. Yes, now that OP is 18, in most places in this country, the parents do not have any legal obligation to support this young adult. If they want to charge rent, they can. If they do not want to support any college plans, they do not have to do so.

Colleges have strict rules about declaring students under age 24 adults. It’s their crazy loophole that so many college students over the age of 18 are considered dependents when it comes to financial aid eligibility for college.

The OP has several choices:

  1. Work out an arrangement with parents about staying in their home and commuting to a nearby state school, cr community college. Work part or even full time, go to d hook part or full time.
  2. Talk to the Financial Aid counselor at the college OP has already accepted and see if there is anyway, the school can make it happen. I don’t have a whole lot of hope in this option. But give it s try. Being independent can increase the loans to to $9500, I believe. Maybe OP can qualify for PELL. Maybe school can throw in enough money so that with work earnings, it can work.
    3). Put college on hold for a year or so. Take a course or two this year, maybe and assess the situation. Learn the financial aid rules and how things with and strategize for college.

Start at your local community college which should be much more affordable. Get a job and save during that time. Then see if you can transfer. Even with that route it may not be affordable in the long run but it gets you started.

At least 2.5 miles is not totally unreasonable to walk… Where we live it’s 8 miles to the nearest anything (gas station) and 14 miles to the public university. Possible to bike, but a little rough in MN in the winter…especially where we live with steep hills. So, no car = No job. His car insurance is $60/month which I cover and it’s so worth it to me to not have to shuttle him back and forth to town at 40 minutes a trip.

My son will probably be going away to school and NOT taking his car because there is excellent public transportation there and it would be more of a burden to have a car than not, but it is definitely not the cheaper option. Cheapest would be to keep the car and commute to the local university.

I don’t know 2.5 miles each way? Sure can walk it but do to conditions can be draining. But biking seems reasonable. Hopefully when school starts there might be others to get rides with?

@abijoy

I hope you come back & answer some of the questions on this thread, to clarify & so posters can help.

All the young people where I work who live at home with their parents without other financial support from their parents are slooooowly working their way thru community college.

Going away to a residential college is out of the question due to the high costs & lack of parental support.

You CAN get your degree! It just may look very different from a traditional student.

The thing is, YOU^ pay for insurance and are supportive; OP’s parents are TAKING money from hiim. There is also mention that this student’s car is not in reliable shape for a long commute, and living on campus is not in the picture unless parents get financially involved or the school does. There is a big gap right now. If OP doesn’t come up with the money to pay that gap, he ain’t going to that college.

We don’t know enough particulars here. I know a kid who had to get his own car insurance and pay every dime of car expenses because his parents did not want him getting a car in high school. So when he got this junker, they wanted no part of it. Also, kid likes eating out rather than making lunch and bagging it, skips breakfast at home to buy an egg sandwich at some place with buddies, and parents don’t give a dime towards that. Or other personal activities they do not want to support. Also some parents have an iron clad rule that once a kid works, they have to contribute towards the household. Maybe the kid takes long hot showers , cranks up the AC , and is not living as frugally as parents like, so it is on his dime , not the parents.

That kid, by the way has a litany of complaints about his parents and says he’s all on his own. FAFSA would say otherwise . As would I.

But there are also kids, who really do not have any modicum of parental support. Parents are strapped and need every cent and will take it. One parent sold his kid’s instrument and other belongings, so strapped he was when the kid graduated high school. After all, the parent had paid for the stuff.

We can’t tell where the OP is on this spectrum that can extend either way from the kid outright lying to undergoing true abuse. For now, I’m going by what he has stated. He is allowed to live at home but has to pay expenses. Whether parent will give leeway on that if he goes to college, and needs his money to pay tuition and cost, we don’t know. Apparently they have some financial info ??? I think, as OP has gotten some sort of aid package. But there is a money gap that has to be resolved if OP is going to that school. Otherwise, it’s simple. He’s not. He has to do something else other than go that college. If there is a local affordable , choice, perhaps he can go there and work to pay those costs and what his parents are charging him. If he can do better living elsewhere, he should move, but usually the offspring discount is the best a kid can get even if it means paying something. We are talking about a teenager here just out of high school, I think.

I’ve been gone for a while so I haven’t been able to reply. I apologize.
Here’s some more info

  1. Currently pursuing a B.S. in Biology, but I know now that’s NOT what I want to continue to pursue. I’m not sure at all what I want to do at this point.
  2. This cost of attendance is for everything except food. Housing, gas, other expenses.
  3. If I choose to take a gap year or go to community college or whatever else besides a 4-year public college… I have to move out, like far away. My family visits my grandma and other supportive family all too much for me to be able to pull off living with them while I figure things out. My parents are pretty mentally abusive so I would rather avoid staying home at all costs. (:
  4. The closest real community college near me is about half an hour away on a good day, which I don’t think is worth it considering my car is literally falling apart at the seams currently.
  5. My parents technically “bought” my car, but then tossed all financial responsibility onto me. Therefore, I’m making the payments back to them (but doing insurance totally myself) so I can’t exactly just like SELL the car and just use public transportation (which we don’t even really have) or walk places.
  6. The hours at my current job fluctuate so I work anywhere between 25-40 hours weekly at $10. I’m looking for somewhere with higher pay and steady hours right now.
    Am I missing anything?