<p>I’ll be 18 well before I finish my senior year of high school, so I am legally free from my parents’ jurisdiction. That being said, does that mean that they can refuse to pay my college tuition whenever they want to? The reason I am asking is because my father is very determined on having me pay for college myself through aid and merit scholarships. However my family income bracket falls well above the normal financial aid constraint. So what would happen in this scenario?</p>
<p>Your parents don’t have to pay for anything.</p>
<p>Logic would say that your parents aren’t obligated to pay for anything once you’re a legal adult. However there has been a situation in which a student sued her parents for her college tuition -and won.
<a href=“21-Year-Old Sues Parents for College Tuition — and Wins”>21-Year-Old Sues Parents for College Tuition — and Wins;
<p>Parents don’t have to pay for anything, but they are expected by the schools to help pay for college. You will need to look for merit aid if your family is fairly well off. Look at the pinned threads in the Financial Aid forum for some options.</p>
<p>
What happens in this scenario is:
- you study your butt off to land merit scholarships or
- you take years off from school to work and save money or
- you enlist in the military as a grunt or
- you apply for an ROTC scholarship to be an officer</p>
<p>There’s also work study, applying to schools with full ride scholarship programs, and applying for those really small, specific scholarships that nobody knows about (there are plenty of really small scholarships out there if you look hard enough). </p>
<p>No. You are an adult so your parents, under our eyes, do not have to pay for your college. It would be nice (most parents seem to), but they aren’t obligated.
You could sue, of course. Who knows, you might win.
You could always go to a Community College, work, and transfer in 4 years. But from what my teacher said, not many kids transfer (sometimes because lack of knowledge on how to transfer). So be sure to plan out with a counselor on how to transfer from a community college to a college/university!
There is also trade school or a for-profit. Just saying.</p>
<p>Between age 18 and 24 (and not married or a military veteran), you are in the situation where your parents are not required to pay for anything, but college financial aid assumes that they will pay based on their income and/or assets.</p>
<p>If your parents have significant income and/or assets but won’t pay, then college will not be affordable to you on need-based financial aid. You need to do one of the following in order to attend college:</p>
<ul>
<li>Earn a full ride merit scholarship (see the sticky thread at the top of the financial aid and scholarships section).</li>
<li>Earn some other full ride scholarship (e.g. athletic, ROTC, etc.).</li>
<li>Attend a college that has no or minimal up-front cost (e.g. a military service academy, assuming your favored career is military officer).</li>
<li>Wait until you are 24, married, or a military veteran before attending college.</li>
</ul>
<p>A few decades ago, your parents’ generation was likely able to earn enough pay as a high school graduate to be self-supporting, with money left over to pay the trivial tuition and books at an in-state public university. Unfortunately, this “working one’s way through college” is less doable now, due to much higher college costs and worse pay for high school graduates. It may be doable for the frosh/soph level course work at a community college (if your state has good inexpensive community colleges), but completion of a bachelor’s degree typically requires a more expensive four year school.</p>
<p>Even if a parent does not pay, they can still support you in other ways. For example, if they are willing to let you stay at home and attend college full-time as a commuter (without paying them rent) then that would save you room and board fees which could be over $10,000 depending on how much your college gouges the people who live in the dorms. </p>
<p>Additionally, even if they only help you by completing the CSS Profile and the FAFSA can be a huge help; many students who post here have parents who won’t even do that much for whatever reason, which leaves them in the lurch in terms of even qualifying for an unsubsidized Stafford loan.</p>
<p>But no, you can’t compel your parents to pay for college. There’s a lot of noise out there about that one case where a girl sued her parents to pay for college but the facts and circumstances of that case are rather specific and it’s not something I would really concern myself with. (The case is also still in litigation so no one has any idea how it will turn out).</p>
<p>In some states, courts may order divorced parents to pay for a child to attend college, regardless of age.</p>