<p>I recently got accepted to University of Hawaii at Manoa (my dream school) only to find out days later that I didn't qualify for Financial Aid. The school runs at about 20,000 a year and my parents cant afford to help me with college. Should I do it all in loans, or should I go to a community college and then transfer. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p><a href=“http://manoa.hawaii.edu/about/facts/finance/cost_attendance.html”>http://manoa.hawaii.edu/about/facts/finance/cost_attendance.html</a> says that UH Manoa costs about $26,000 for WUE students and $37,000 for other non-Hawaii students. If your parents cannot help and you have no scholarships or financial aid, then it is too expensive.</p>
<p>You could attend CC in HI or a school local to you as instate (commuting from home and saving $$) and transfer. UH is pretty good about welcoming transfers. Housing and living costs in HI do run high. </p>
<p>Agree that WUE is a great program, if you qualify–Western Undergraduate Exchange program. You can also consider the National Student Exchange to do a term or year at UH or other participating U. Most of my sibs and I did that decades ago. </p>
<p>How would you borrow 20k to 26k a year? And think about what it would mean should you somehow graduate with $100,000 in debt. But don’t worry, you won’t be allowed to. You can only borrow Federal Direct Loan of $5,500 for your freshman year. No one else will lend you money.</p>
<p>All you qualify for is $5,500 in loans as indicated above and you could earn $4,000 working. Therefore, if your parents can’t help, you can’t go now. A solution would indeed be to attend a community college in-state, saving money, and transferring to UH during the spring of your sophomore year.
Are you in-state in Hawai’i? Even WUE sounds too expensive if your parents can’t help.</p>
<p>Do you have any other options? Would any of the public 4-year colleges/universities in your own home state be affordable? Did you get good aid offers from any private 4-year colleges/universities?</p>
<p>What made U Hawaii at Manoa your “dream school”? Can you get some of what it offers anywhere else that your family can afford?</p>
<p>If CC is your only option left right now, would it make sense to take a gap year so that you can apply to a new set of potentially affordable colleges/universities? Think about that too.</p>
<p>No, you shouldn’t do it all in loans. And, thankfully you can’t unless your parents are naive enough to cosign those loans.</p>
<p>And, you’ll face the same problem if you try to transfer. As a junior, you can only borrow 7500 per year…not enough. Plus travel back and forth is very expensive!</p>
<p>Why is that school your “dream school”??? Because it’s in Hawaii? What does it offer that is so much better than your affordable options?</p>