Tell your mother that regardless of your financial situation, you have a right to some federal aid - all students do. In addition, there are different state grants and you may well qualify. It costs NOTHING to file FAFSA and if they determine you can get more than the basic federal aid, all the better, but at least you know you qualify for federal aid.
So, some money (federal financial aid) is a right and you’ll get it no matter how much your parents make; then there is merit aid, based on your stats, not on how much your parents make; BTW, some schools won’t release merit aid unless you’ve completed FAFSA, too, so their not filing FAFSA may jeopardize those, too.
Finally, have you run the NPC? Net price calculator? If not, do it quickly( like: now). It’ll be better than your mother guesstimating you’ll get nothing.
Tell your mom: there are FAFSA deadlines and if you don’t respect them, you may lose your scholarships or not get that for which you qualify. Binghamton, for example, had all kinds of scholarships for students who’d filed FAFSA by February 1st! And since you’re a strong enough student to qualify for scholars, you’d most likely would have qualified for something.
Can you run this and show the results to your mom?
http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml