Financial Aid Difficulties for Middle Class Students

You will find that there are quite a few students with your financial issues.

The first step you’ll need to do is have a frank conversation with your parents about how much they are willing to pay for your college. Perhaps they have some savings set aside for it? Regardless, you need to know how much.

Then you need to look for schools where the merit aid you could receive will put you within reach of those costs.

This will eliminate all schools that don’t give merit aid, but the good news is there are quite a few that do and top students such as yourself go to them every year. Some choose them even when their parents can be full pay because they don’t want to put an extra 100-200K into an undergraduate education. They save for grad/prof school or parents/students simply have the money for something else (car, house, starting a business, retirement, etc).

If you can report back with what is a realistic amount your parents can pay and your desires for college (major or general fields of interest, type of school you’d like - urban/suburban/rural/large/small/religious/secular/etc, region/location if important, and anything else you can think of), folks here on cc can likely provide good options to consider.

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