My parents live beyond their means resulting in me not having much money for myself. I don’t want to dive too deep into it but the primary spender in our house is my mother who just blows money on furniture, clothing, my brother’s fancy private school education etc. Also, my parents did not get me a college fund when they were supposed to resulting in barely any money saved up for my education. I believe my parents make between 120k-140k but they don’t allow me to know. I do know; however, that my mother does not work.
Looking at some outside scholarships, I qualify in merit for them but not in finance. It’s not my fault my paren’t don’t seem to care much about my education as I do. The Jack Kent Cooke College Scholarship only allows people to apply if their parents make less than 95,000.
I don’t know what to do? Should I apply for scholarships as an independent having no money since my parents barely have any money to pay for my education or is this bad?
Unless you are 24 years old, join the military, get married or have a child for whom you provide at least 51% for, you can not simply file independent. It would be a waste of your time because you would still be ineligible.
you need to have a realistic talk with your parents regarding how much they can afford to pay. If they can pay $10,000 a year, with your student loan ($5500 freshman year, $6500 sophomore, $7500 junior/senior year), you would need a full tuition scholarship in order to go away.
Otherwise, you may have to go locally and commute from home or start at community college.
There are specific criteria you have to meet to be declared independent for financial aid purposes, and it doesn’t look like you meet any of them. Can your parents pay anything for your school? If not, you need to look for merit aid. What state are you in?
Maryland. I’ve taken 6 AP classes so far (I’m a junior this year), had a summer internship, won tiny awards at a local intel competition, but I know there’s countless others who are applying to my same school who most likely have done more.
I told my kids that college education is not an entitlement…even I do plan to help them as much as I can…they (in the case of my kids) could have worked harder and applied for merit aid.
Your parents are under no obligation to have a college fund for you. In fact, the very vast majority of college students do not have college funds. We didn’t have college funds. There are other ways to pay for college beside college funds.
What are your SAT or ACT scores? What is your GPA?
What state do you live in? Have you started looking at public colleges in your state?
Do you have a job? If not, I would suggest getting one asap.
Will your parents contribute annually for your college costs? If so, how much? If you don’t know,the answer to this…ask them.
What are your parents hoping you will do when you graduate from HS.
You cannot apply as an independent student because you are NOT an independent student. You live with your parents. You are not over 24. You aren’t an orphan. You aren’t a veteran. You aren’t married. You aren’t supporting a minor child of your own. You are not a ward of the state.
So…what can you do?
Find out how much your parents plan to contribute annually for college. That is your budget.
Look at merit aid options.
Find out if your parents will complete the FAFSA with you...so you can at least get the $5500 Direct loan.
If your parents say they aren't paying anything....then you can get a full time job and attend a local college part time. You can go to a community college. You can try to find a school with sufficient merit aid to pay yoir costs...but keep in mind...full complete rides are not particularly plentiful.
I think the missing link here…you don’t mention any college discussions with your family. Have they happened? If not…time to do that.
My parents never talk about college. My therapist has tried to even get us to sit down and have a normal conversation about it but I guess they’d like to keep on spending.
It is their money to “blow” as they see fit. Sounds like you have a roof over your head, food. clothing, and health care. Look at colleges where you can live at home and commute. Or if you have very high stats, there are some good scholarships available at schools like UAlabama.
I probably should have said more about my situation. My dad does not approve of her spending all this money as it is unauthorized. She has run-up so much credit card debt and made insurance premium’s rise so much because of her reckless driving, it’s insane. I am fortunate for what I do have, though.
thumper1 is correct in that your parents don’t have to pay for your college education. You should get onto Kahn Academy and start doing practice tests for both the ACT and SAT. Prepare yourself well for the PSAT. If you do well on that test maybe you could be a merit finalist. Also find via search engine websites that have scholarship information. There are thousands of different kinds of scholarships that if you write a good essay that you could win money for college. If you really want to go to college you will use the information that all of us have given you and move forward to reach your goals. Good luck !
Very passive aggressive. Are you on CC to vent about your situation, or to help make a plan to finance college for your self, either by commuting, working for a few years, or finding merit scholarships?
You’ll find a lot of help here if it’s the latter. If it’s the former, I think that posters are wasting their time.
You have excellent grades, and you’re only a junior: plenty of time to really prepare for the SATs/ACTs. There are inexpensive books and prep courses online, some of them free.
So what you do is this:
Ask your parents point blank: will you pay for my college costs, and if so, how much can I count on per year? Do you promise to fill out my FAFSA documents?
Keep up your grades. Prepare for the SATs
Read this forum. Here you’ll discover many options for high achieving students, schools that offer merit aid, etc. You’ll get great advice on putting together a solid list of schools to which apply – schools that fall into the safety/match/reach category, depending on your parents’ answer to question #1.
Chin up. Lots of well-meaning folks here ready to help you!
