The closest community college is an hour commute total everyday and I really really do not want to live in this area. There’s no opportunities whatsoever for internships, jobs to work to help fund my studies, etc. I’ve tried asking my mom if she’d be willing to pay anything towards tuition but when I do, she sort of just clams up. When I ask about our finances and ask what our general household income is to see if certain institutions would qualify as us being able to receive need-based aid (because some have ridiculously low standards for it) she clams up and accuses me of saying we’re poor. She keeps saying “we’ll get there when we get there” and my guidance counselor says not to think about cost but I don’t want to throw away hundreds on college applications to schools where the bill is going to be 60k a year with no aid.
I’m not sure how I feel about staying home and getting my associate’s for a lot of reasons (some mentioned above), the biggest one being when I was younger and dreaming about college my parents would constantly “joke” about kicking me out at 18. Sure, they might’ve been ACTUALLY joking but it always made me incredibly uneasy. Staying to get my associate’s is my “if nothing else works” option.
I’ve done the Rhodes NPC and according to it (including direct loans and merit-based aid) I have a pretty good chance of only having to pay around 25k. I know that’s a lot of working I’ll need to do but I’m creative and I know how to make money.