<p>Just wondering, what happens if your parents earn enough money that you wont qualify for any financial aide, but your parents wont pay for the tuition?</p>
<p>Does that mean that you'll have to take MASSIVE loans in order to attend private colleges?</p>
<p>It means you either have to get merit scholarships that cover everything (difficult, but possible with a lot of work and decent stats), you have to take out loans or you have to do something like live at home, work, take out loans and go to a local college starting with a community colleges.</p>
<p>Colleges won't give need-based aid because a student's parents have the $, but refuse to pay for college. If colleges did that, all parents would opt out of paying for their kids' colleges. Why pay if a kid can get a free ride?</p>
<p>Oh -- you also could go into ROTC, go to a military academy or get married or go to college after you turn 24. Doing either of the last 2 options means that colleges would declare you independent of your parents, and you could qualify for need-based aid based on your personal resources.</p>
<p>mfs99: i'm in the same situation. My parents don't want to pay a dime of my college education. Take the community college to transfer. In california UCs LA/Berkeley are great public schools to attend for a moderate cost. To be honest, if you live in california, there's no need to go to a private college for undergraduate work unless you're admitted to an ivy league.</p>
<p>See how high of a bar your top state university has set for students wishing to enter graduate level of ivy leagues. For instance, a good amount of students graduating from UCLA and Berkeley are admitted to ivy leagues.</p>
<p>One thing you can do is go out to the state colleges and ask for a record of the number of students graduating from the college and going to an ivy league for graduate work, provided the school keeps a record and surveys students.</p>