How should a student pay for college if their parents refuse to pay and FAFSA gives only loans to them?
Question:
Answer:
File as an independent, not as dependent on your parents. This way they look at your personal income, not your parents. This also means your parents cannot claim you on their taxes-- which gets them huge benefits. They may spring for college if you threaten to file as independent.
its called life and life isnt fair. apply for the grants again after NOT lviing with parents for a while (liek a year). also get a JOB.
be thankfull you qualify for loans and pay them back when you graduate, like the rest of us. why do you think you should get free money? lots of people don't qualify for loans or grants!
Ya looking for a awe poor baby? Awe poor baby... feel better?
Try work/study programs on campus. They allow you to work on campus and a portion of your wages go to paying board/tuition.
There is alot of free money out there for people that want to go to college. Finding it is the issue.
http://www.scholarships.com/
You could do work-study or take a reduced course load while you work. There are loans that you can take. Possibly consider a state school for the cost-effectiveness. Hope this helps!
Do what everyone else does and take out loans and get yourself a job. Stop looking for handouts.
Get a lawyer and sue them.
You have to qualify for work-study, just like for grants. What you need to do is contact your local Fin Aid Office and file supplemental forms - these can augment your FAFSA. You cannot file as independent unless you are married, 24 or older, or already have a degree.
I'm sure this isn't the answer you want, but I'm going to give it anyway. Take the loans. I had to make my entire way through college on only loans, I know how you feel. But the degree you earn in the end is a great reward for going into debt. You'll be able to get a job and make enough money after that to pay them off.
Debt isn't a great thing to get into, but for an education, I feel it's worth it.
You are heading out on your own, so why not really leave the nest? You don't qualify for the loans now, because you are still under Mom & Dad's umbrella. FAFSA is legitimately need based, and if your parents make enough money, you don't need FAFSA.
If you don't want to get a loan on you own, and can't get any grants, you may have to settle for something less than you expect now. Maybe even start school part time, if that is all the new independent you can afford.
Another option is to get some life experience first. You don't have to join the Peace Corps or military (although that could address your future college funding problem), but some version of getting out there and experiencing life before hitting the college campus can have many benefits. You may also find a job that you can tolerate for a while, that helps to pay for college.
Beyond getting you out from under the aforementioned umbrella, you also get to learn more about yourself. In everything you've done in life thus far, you have always had your parents to back you up. Even if you go out and get a series of the most miserable jobs you've ever had for a year, it will not be a complete waste.
When you finally get that loan/grant/whatever on your own, I guarantee that you will do everything in your power to avoid having to do one or more of the horrible jobs that you experienced.
Beyond that, you will spend your college money more wisely. Why go to college for 4 years only to discover that basket weaving may be your life's passion, but it doesn't pay enough to keep you in the lifestyle to which you would like to be accustomed.
Your situation is not at all unusual. Most people have to take out loans to go to school in the US. If you had a different expectation, perhaps that is the biggest problem for you right now. Your expectation was not met, and you have to deal with an unpleasant reality. Graduating with high debts is horrible, however it seems unavoidable in today's world, unless you have rich parents or excellent grades AND an intrepid inexhaustible well of energy for seeking out free money sources (a job in itself). Still, without a university education, and I would venture, without a graduate level education in something scientific or technical, you will not have a high salary, sufficient to pay back those school debts. So think twice about making them if you plan to study music or physical education or law. Whatever you plan to study, think of it as a financial investment, check out the job market, and see if you will be able to make your money back. The job market is horrible right now and has been for years, very inflexible and constantly fed by well educated immigrants willing to work for pennies. Think about how your education is going to make you money. After all, if you are really interested in basket weaving, you can read a book about it in your free time, no need to pay a university tens of thousands of dollars to entertain you.
The U.S. government supplies funding for several aid programs. FAFSA is just the application, which is then applied to different funds such as Pell Grants, TAP, Stafford Loans, etc. Each program has limited funding. Many of the programs are need based.
FAFSA uses the federal income tax form as a basis for calculations, plus other data related to your household's ability to pay for your education. As long as your parents claim you as a dependent, your need will be assessed based on their income. Please see http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/map.htm... for more information on determining financial aid. The section on EFC is particularly pertinent here.
Note that, if you establish that you are independent, it will affect the amount of student aid that you are eligible for. One could argue that as long as a parent claims their child on their taxes, as well as provides financial support to meet that child's needs, they would provide the monies necessary to educate that child.
You will need to access the IRS website, as well as the FAFSA website, in order to determine the requirements for establishing your independent status. Please visit http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-... for information on independent students.
It is also important to note that over the course of a lifetime, a college educated individual (Bachelor's degree) will earn 700,000 dollars more than a person with only a high school degree (U.S. Census: http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-...
The student should apply to fafsa as an independent and probably get more money to pay for college and also they could look for grants that are high enough to pay for college.
You need rice grains to actually cook rice. How do you get rice grains? You work hard for it. World is fair, that is the reason why if you want something you need to do something to get it.. like the rest of the people who does. If you don't then you are the one playing unfair. And that's the reason why there is a word JOB - - =/
Your best option is to appeal to your financial aid office to be considered "independent" on the FAFSA. If you are deemed independent (which your school is solely responsible for deciding, BTW), your school will be able to "ignore" the parent sections of the FAFSA when calculating your eligibility. Assuming you don't have *too* many assets and income in your name, your independent status will make you eligible for additional loan funding *as well as* grant aid and work-study (both of which are need-based).
Unfortunately, it is explicitly stated in the Federal Student Aid regulations that a parent's refusal to pay for his/her/their child's education is not sufficient grounds for a student's dependency status to be overriden (sadly, if this was the case, then parents would start making these claims just to get their kids more money): http://www.ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/atta...
Instead, if you can prove to your Financial Aid administrator that you are completely self-supporting (because you have no other choice), they should be able to grant you what is referred to as a "dependency override." Because these overrides cannot be granted without due cause, your school must be careful, so you will probably be asked to submit documentation that you have been paying all of your own expenses (food, housing, clothing, insurance, transportation) and are not claimed on someone else's tax return.
If you can't submit this information now, you might want to consider delaying your enrollment for a little while until you meet the FAFSA's standard "Independency" criteria (i.e. you are 24, married, have dependents, are on active duty, or are a veteran/ward/orphan, etc.) or until you qualify for a dependency override.
If you must attend school now, your options are limited: you can seek instutitional funding from the school you plan on attending, you can apply for private scholarship funding... or you can borrow private loans. There are certainly students who manage to fund their educations exclusively with private loan funding... but I suspect that many of these students regret that choice. Alternatively, you might opt to borrow private loans but attend a much lower-cost institution (such as a community college or state school) so that your overall debt doesn't exceed your ability to repay. For a list of private loan options, try this site: http://www.finaid.org/loans/privatestude...
Firstly you might want to start looking at going to a cheaper school. Try going to a state school or even community college where you can afford to pay for it yourself for the first two years. Most of the gen-ed credits transfer fairly universally. Then after you've established yourself as no longer a "dependant" of your parents which usually means you have to prove you've supported yourself for 2 years in most states, are married or are in the military it's your income not your parents that the financial aid groups look at for qualifiers for grants/scholorships etc... Then you can transfer to a school more befitting of your test scores and grades and do so at little to no cost to you.
Another option is joining the ROTC. You shouldn't have too much difficulty getting in with those scores. Uncle sam pays for 4 years of school up front and after you pay Uncle Sam back with 4-6 years as a commissioned officer in the military. During this time the military will also pay full tuition for you if you want to go to grad school in the evenings and the experience and money isn't all that bad.
Yet another option is to find full time work and go to school in the nights and weekends. This is fairly exhausting (trust me on that one) but gets the job done. Depending on your skills and connections it shouldn't be too hard for a bright young person to find a job making 30k a year which would easily cover state schools giving you money left over for rent/expenses.
Final option is to get creative. My brother worked part time while going to school and to make up the rest of the money he donated blood plasma three times a week (30-50 dollars per trip) and made the occasional trip to the sperm bank (200 dollars per trip) and used his skills to his advantage by tutoring other students for money and helping someone write the occasional research paper etc... With enough ambition and drive it's easy to find the money you need for your education.
I work at a college and now my education is free. It's better than a discount at Old Navy.
You can claim independence if A) you have a child, B) your parents don't claim you on their taxes C) you are 24 years old. find out if your parents claim you and apply for as many scholarships available. Write letters to different companies asking for sponsorship lastly get a job and work at it. show your parents that you are truly interested in getting and education mabey they will come around and pay for you to go after a year. All else fails delay enrollment to a major university and start at the community level it's cheaper and you can take some of your core courses to start
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