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<p>As unpleasant as this might sound, the way to avoid huge debts after college is to apply to as many meet-need colleges for which you qualify and having a good backup plan such as a State university or even two years of much less expensive community college with a transfer to a state university.</p>
<p>Even people who have two working middle class parents who have saved for years for college come out of Out Of State or Private/LAC colleges these days with an average debt of the FAFSA student loan limits of about $22,000 – so I am assuming when you say massive debt, you mean $100,000 to $200,000. The truth is, you would not be able to finance that level of debt anyway.</p>
<p>The good news is that because you are a permanent resident, you will be eligible to borrow $5500 a year under generally preferable terms, plus will likely qualify for some pell grant (although not likely more than about $3,000 ish a year) and for other grant programs if those are available in your state. Your parents will likely qualify for a Plus loan as well. So far, doing the math, that still doesn’t cover the full cost of an in-state school let alone some of the ones on your list. You should also note that some colleges might view the provision of housing through the church as a benefit of sorts (not on FAFSA, but possibly considered on the CSS).</p>
<p>So your best plan is to take your stats and compare them to the published admitted statistics of school profiles on this site, on college board and so on, look up the programs you’re interested in, and read the financial aid pages of those that you’re interested in. Watch for the phrase “meet full identified need.”</p>
<p>There is a lot of research involved in choosing your list of schools and we can’t do it for you. Only you can weigh what features are worth your future sacrifice and the sacrifice of your family. </p>
<p>You would then still apply to your favorite “reach” schools, knowing it <em>might</em> not work out financially, but also knowing that you will never know unless you try. Also some “match” schools and then some academic and financial safety schools. For example, one student who applied to University of Michigan last year from Maryland with a “zero” EFC (expected family contribution – how much colleges expect your family to contribute) suprisingly got more than $30,000 in a package of loans and grants, which I believe was enough to allow him to borrow the difference and work while he attended. Yet posters on CC will tell you that schools like University of Michigan are notoriously chinzy at providing funding for Out of State students, which is generally true. You just never know for sure, so if you want it, you have to try and make yourself highly appealing to the place you’re applying.</p>
<p>I am assuming that you are a junior this year? If so, it’s good to be starting the research now. Truly, you should seek the help of your guidance counselor, who will have statistics on what schools accept people from YOUR specific school within your range of academic achievement. Another online source you can try to see statistics of volunteer posters is [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com). At this site, you can see real time acceptance/defer/rejection trends from those who create a profile on the TRACKER system. Just remember the data does not reflect the overall published data of the school, just those who post on it. It also has listings of different college profiles for research purposes.
Good luck!</p>