<p>I’ve been thinking some more about this…</p>
<p>You seem to be highly intelligent. Also, reading between the lines of what you said, it seems that you want a high-powered career.</p>
<p>Given that, I’m not sure that going to a lower-tier school that offers you a full ride or close to it is for you. For one thing, you’re just not going to be intellectually stimulated at a lower-tier school if you’re a top student. In addition to being bored, you’re not going to grow much intellectually. Also, lower-tier schools probably aren’t going to open the doors you want to open if you’re shooting for a high-powered career and/or foreign countries (e.g., Europe). They’re not even that useful for getting to other parts of the USA, especially if you decide you want to live in a major city or to move to the “coasts”.</p>
<p>For example, the schools Pennsylvanians call “local colleges” probably aren’t a good choice. For those of you outside of PA or other areas where this term exists, local colleges are private colleges which might have a decent reputation as long as you stay within a 50 mile radius or so. Outside the immediate area, people haven’t heard of them, which obviously doesn’t help you get jobs elsewhere. I’d also classify most or all of the state universities in Pennsylvania other than Penn State, Pitt and Temple as lower-tier.</p>
<p>If a full ride at a lower-tier school is your only real option, a better way would be to start at a community college. Then, it might be realistic to borrow and/or earn the money to attend a state university which is at least middle-tier. Even if you have to borrow $10K or $15K per year to make it work, that’s a total debt of only $20K to $30K if you only need two years at the state university. A lot of people manage this kind of debt load. You could also work while attending less than full-time if you have no other choice.</p>
<p>Also, if you need to put some geographic separation between yourself and your parents, being OOS at the state universities in New York and Minnesota is only slightly more expensive than being in-state at Pitt or Penn State.</p>
<p>Even if it takes longer to get a degree from a better university - for example, because you have to work - it’s still probably better than graduating from a lower-tier university. Anything you do to recover from having had to start at a lower-tier university is also going to cost you time. You might have to start with lower-quality jobs and slowly work your way up to better jobs. This can be a chicken-and-egg problem because the lower-quality job might not give you experience which makes you marketable to better organizations. You might have to go to graduate school, despite not wanting to, just to get a respectable university name on your resume. But it’s going to be difficult or impossible to get into the best graduate schools from a lower-tier school when you’re competing with people who went to top-tier schools as undergraduates.</p>
<p>Last but not least, because your parents are unwilling to even talk about financial aid, it’s likely that they will refuse to fill out the FAFSA forms. To guard against this, you need to have some options which do not rely on the submission of a FAFSA. Universities with low sticker prices, such as community colleges and four-year state universities, fall into this category. But be aware that even merit aid often requires the submission of a FAFSA.</p>
<p>Again, good luck! I’ve also had to deal with limited family support and limited university choices due to financial issues. I know how hard it is.</p>