There are scholarships for students like you, but they will often not be in high enough amounts to affect your EFC (what the FAFSA (and private schools have their own institutional forms) determine your family (yes, your parents) must pay per year, based on family income). If a family’s income is 100K, that family might have an EFC of 20K per year (maybe a little bit lower, maybe a little bit more–I am not counting very serious impact factors, such as a parent’s recent job loss or other significant loss of income, a serious medical issue). That EFC needs to be paid no matter what. That EFC amount is out-of-pocket cost per year. It is then up to the college/U to make up the difference. An annoyance is that many colleges do not guarantee to make up that difference; this is called “gapping.” A huge scholarship might eat into that EFC number, but huge scholarships are very competitive.
Are there full tuition or full ride scholarships out there for a student like you? Believe it or not, yes. The catch? They’ll be at the sorts of schools that you might not be thrilled to attend. For instance, tiny Eureka College in IL gives out six full tuition Reagan scholarships (yep, Ronald Reagan graduated from Eureka) that cover all four years, and the minimum needed to apply is a 3.0 GPA and a 25 on the ACT (I’m guessing, though, that one should have higher stats than that to be competitive). But do you want to attend Eureka College, a very tiny, entirely regional college in the middle of Nowhere, IL? If you’re a WV resident, look at the schools in your area that might be thrilled to have a student like you and pay for it!
The rule of thumb? Your largest merit (read: scholarship) awards will come from schools where your GPA and standardized test scores are significantly above the typical admit.
So…get your parents to contribute. Or do what I did. My parents also did not care about college or contributing to my college education. My parents never said to me, “Hapworth, it’s time to start looking at colleges! Here are a bunch of college guides that we’ve purchased! Also, Hap, we need to start thinking about schools to visit!” Nope. I attended a community college. I kicked butt there. I transferred to a four-year school. I went on to graduate school (MA and doctoral study). While at CC, I saved up money so that I could pay my EFC, which was much lower twenty years ago. Sadly, you’re in a tough spot. Even if you attend a CC, will you be able to save the 40K–or more–you’ll need to pay the 20K±per-year EFC that you’ll need for the final two years at a four-year school? When you turn 25, you can fill out the FAFSA as an independent. No, you cannot just declare yourself independent at ages 18-24.
Yeah, get your parents to contribute!