Schools I got into:
Villanova, Hofstra, Fordham, Marquette, USF, Notre Dame de Namur, Portland, CSU Dominguez Hills
Schools still awaiting a decision from:
UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, Occidental
In regards to scholarships, I know that one substantial scholarship I am working towards can be used to pay down loan debt. Otherwise, I would welcome the money going to SDSU, because that way I could allocate more funds towards student loan repayment from the job I will hold down during college.
In regards to a gap year, I’d actually just consider a CC and finish out my General Ed requirements, with the goal of transferring after a year…
How much was private high school this year?
@mcSDSU33: Just an FYI, for UC’s and CSU’s you need a minimum of 60 semester or 90 quarter units to transfer. If you have an substantial amount of AP credits, you could do this in a year.
I might be missing something here, so bear with me. SDSU is your local State University and is actually within Commuting distant from your home. However, you want to live on campus, but will not be able to do so unless you can convince your parents to co-sign a “very bad loan”. Essentially, they capitulate and sent you to a private high school of your choice and essentially, exhausted your college fund sending you to this private high school. You poor Dad had to take on a Part-Time Job just to help pay for you to go to this private high school. WOW!
Now you want your parents to co-sign a Plus Loan, which would probably be unnecessary, if you decide, like many College bound Students in your financial predicament, to commute to school. If I was in your parents position, I wouldn’t sign that loan either. I guess they are reading all these horror stories of Parents who end up being stuck with PLUS Loans when their College Student dropped out of College, pursue majors that did not lead to any meaningful employment or just plain refuse to repay the loan. Live within your means!
- If you consider an hour commuting distance, than ok. Keep in mind that gas, insurance, traffic in CA are the only reasons I really need to say goodbye to a car for at least three years.
- Part time was the wrong word choice. It was more along the lines of side contract work a few times a year. Not to say that there isn't an immense amount of gratitude for what he did. I was just glad he found an escape in that from his primary place of employment.
- Nobody is cosigning a PLUS loan. Nobody is taking out a PLUS loan. This entire post is working around any parental loan/contribution.
- With me already in the workforce to cover current expensed, I will absolutely work as many hours as I can during the school year, going full time during breaks.
The goal of the post was to see how realistic being self-sufficient in college is. I have put in many hours to finding money, and will continue to see that my parents don’t contribute a dime to my college. With all the work I’ve put in at a very competitive HS, there’s no reason for me not to continue to see it through.
In regards to APs, I had a member of the SDSU enrollment dept. say I would most likely enter SDSU as a sophomore, seeing that I get a 3 on this year’s AP English Lit. and AP Gov tests. Since I’ve never gotten lower than a 4, I don’t see that as a major issue.
If the student takes a gap year and the parents move away from CA, she won’t be instate in CA and neither in the new state, correct? Then she might have to apply to new schools who would give her merit (full tuition) for her stats and then the direct loan and her work earnings might be enough for room & board.
Listen again. You will not be able to attend any of the schools on your list without a cosigner for a loan. Your parent EFC is too high. You won’t get need based aid. So where are you going to get the money to attend college? You don’t have enough with the Direct Loan, and your earnings. Sorry, it’s not there.
Please tell me you are not majoring in finance.
I think with the unaffordability of the schools and uncertainty about where the parents might move to it would be best to take the gap year, apply to new schools, maybe prep and retake ACT for higher merit chances. No taking classes so you’re not considered a transfer student. Freshman applicants usually get the better scholarships.
Often the student retains the I state status if the parents move, especially if the student graduated from a state high school. OP needs to check California law.
OP- enlist your parents help. Sit them down with a grid showing their out of pocket cost at each of the colleges you’ve been admitted to. Clearly your education is important to them-- once they’ve got the numbers in front of them, find out what their plan is for you going on to college.
I don’t know what kind of offers you have from the other colleges-- but once you’ve got everything neatly laid out- total cost of attendance (including travel at the far away schools), amount of aid, what’s left for you and your parents to fund, I think you’ll get some clarity.
You can’t get blood from a stone-- sad but true- and your parents may not have the borrowing capacity you think they do. The house could be underwater (i.e. if they sold it today, it might yield less than what they owe to the bank on the mortgage), they may have other financial obligations or issues you don’t know about. So perhaps their unwillingness to co-sign is their reluctance to tell you that they don’t have the credit-worthiness you think they do, and that co-signing, even for someone as ambitious and hard-working as you, could be financially disastrous.
SDSU’s residency rules state that “If you are a student being claimed on taxes and/
or largely supported by out-of-state persons during any of the past three years, you most
likely will not be classified as a California resident for tuition purposes.” – http://arweb.sdsu.edu/es/registrar/residency_factsheet_2010.pdf
They determine residency on a case by case basis and review it every year.
Attend a CCC until you attain junior status then transfer. That’s about it.
Make sure if you attend CC after HS graduation that you aren’t screwing up your FA (it might not matter as you aren’t really getting anything). But you might end up being a “transfer student” rather than a freshman entering college.
Yes and if her parents end up moving away from CA and she attends a CC she might then need to either stop going there and go to one near her parents’ new home or have to get an apartment and have to pay OOS tuition. And after that she will pay full costs for 2 yrs at a university, how?
If she applies to schools as a freshman and gets full tuition or similar it would be much more affordable. She might still be done after 3 years with her AP credits.