No Money for College

So I'm enrolled in university for this school year, I'm really feeling nervous about this. It's not just the fact that I'm going to be living on campus, two and a half hours away from my friends and family. It's the money. College is so expensive and I just don't think I can afford to go this year. The estimated amount that the university has on their website is around fifty thousand dollars for the year and I'm getting thirty-four thousand between financial aid and scholarships. I'm so stressed out about the difference (seventeen thousand dollars) because I have no idea how I'm going to pull together that money.

Is anyone else feeling the stress of paying for college?

Yeah. I'm planning to go back, but I can't get aid unless I go full time and I can't handle full time school and a nearly full time job; there just isn't enough time in the week. So I'll have to pay for all my credit hours out of pocket, plus the additional 100-150 dollars of supplies per class.

@ dru is the man.
Did you fill out the FAFSA and not qualify, or did someone tell you that? Part time students are eligible to receive pell grants, and if a financial aid worker told you otherwise, I think they're poorly misinformed.

@ The Door Knobs Bite
Have you considered going to a less expensive university? 50,000 is a ton of money, and the only way you'd presumably be able to cover the difference is with student loans.

@ Kurtni
Someone told me that. I assumed because my boyfriend's friend loses his if he doesn't go full time and my boyfriend said you have to go full time to get F.A.

Can you only go for, like, one class and get aid or do you have to do, like, 2 or 3 classes? i want to start with one and see how i can balance everything first, y'know? But I really want my two year in Graphic Design.

@ dru is the man.
I think you have to go at least half time, which would be six hours or two classes.

Actually, I may be wrong. Maybe you can take just one class:

"At a term school, a part-time student will have an annual award that is less than the Scheduled Award. If the student attends part-time,the student’s annual award is taken from the 3/4-time, 1/2-time, or less-than-1/2-time disbursement schedules. "

http://ifap.ed.gov/fsahandbook/attachments/0910FSAHbkVol3Ch3Sept30.pdf

@ Kurtni
That's good. They should be doing stuff like that to encourage people who work to go back to school.

@ dru is the man.
Yeah definitely, that's one of the goals of the entire Pell grant program.

I'm going into my last year of college, and I've had to commute for all four years because while I have enough through grants and scholarships to afford to pay the tuition to commute, I don't have enough money to be able to live on campus. I've always felt a little cheated of the "real college experience" because I've lived at home for four years and could never afford to join a sorority, so at my college, I was always a little out of the social circles because there aren't many people that go to my school that don't live on campus and aren't Greek. Commuting at college for me just feels like four more years of high school.

While on one hand, I feel that it was worth it to be able to go to a prestigious university that works as a great conduit for getting into grad school, I also wish that I would've checked out more schools because there are other private schools in my state that cost about half of the tuition to live on campus that I'm paying right now just to commute

Since it is my last year of undergrad, I am feeling a lot of stress when it comes to paying for grad school, since there is next-to-no financial aid available for graduate programs aside from loans, and I don't have the credit/can't afford to get more student loans. I also have no clue what I want to do career-wise, so I'm considering taking a gap year to figure out what I want to do/get volunteer hours/save up for grad school.

@Kurtni I have, but I can't find anything with my major around where I live(South Jersey). It's not like there are a huge amount of colleges with a game development major. I'm getting a little worried that I'm going to have to give up on my dream of becoming a video game developer and go for something I don't care for as much.

@i saw sparks Living on campus is part of what is causing my issue. The university I'm planning on going to is two and a half hours away so commuting isn't that much of an option. Even if I could commute I'd still be short on money.

@ The Door Knobs Bite
Are you dead set on going to school close to where you live? Could you possibly major in something more general like computer science or software engineering? It might be nice to have a more versatile major for job opportunities.

@Kurtni I really do have to live close because of my dad. *sigh* I'll try looking into animation or software development. It's not what I want to do. But maybe if I go into one of those I'll be able to work on video games one day.

@ The Door Knobs Bite
I hope you find something that works out for you, that's a tough situation. I was trying to do some research on your behalf, and it seems like there are only a few schools in the country that offer the type of program you want, which I can see is really tying your hands

But on the bright side, there are more people working in the video gaming industry than graduates from those programs; so there must be some other degree program out there they look for. So, even if you don't end up in your dream program, you could still get your dream job.

@Kurtni
I know. It's just really hard because I've been dreaming about this since I was in middle school. I'm just going to have to work really hard to be the best I can with whatever program I go for.
I might still have to wait a year to go to college until I can fill out the fasfa again. Maybe I can find a job so I can help out my dad while I'm not going to school and have some money saved up for when I can go.

I don't have any money either, I'm poor (I'm not really poor, I just like to have that mindset. I don't know why) but we aren't financially at it's best. I want to take a year off because of our money situation and I have a plan broiling that I want to carry out to make it happen with minimal cost but my parents are getting in the way with it because of being close-minded and personal problems. It's bringing the ugly out of my mom and I don't think she's detecting it.

@The Door Knobs Bite
As a person going to college right now is 50,000 the complete amount, or the estimated amount? Colleges usually have a "cost of attendance" that's way higher than the actual cost of the college. My college is estimated at around 20k a year, but it's not exactly 20k a year to go there. I am not sure if this is how it is for you, but you may still be able to go, and just not go out or have room for as many fun things (although there should be tons of things to do at your school for free). The large Cost of Attendance at my school is just used as a cap for how much aid and scholarships you can accept. So our cost of attendance is 20,388 for one year so we can't get more aid and scholarships than that.

@Amanda Adenine. It's the estimated amount. I wasn't including doing fun things. I was maybe going to join a club or something. But I'm going to have to take a year off now. The deadline for tuition payment is August 15th. I am not going to have the money for this semester by then. I haven't got my bill yet, but there is no way I'll be able to afford it.

money scares me. I've got a nice amount of scholarships and such, but with awards night coming up, I'm just scared of not getting enough. And I'm also stressed out at the idea that I'll go up on stage and they'll be like "Katrina Ferguson... oh, sorry, nothing." Even though I already earned a merit and state scholarship but still.

there is no money!

@ christopherlucas
If I had known, I would not have gone to college and spent a lot of money on it. But my parents made me. At that time I didn't have the right to decide yet. College didn't really give me anything. When I was asked to write an essay about the cause and effect of climate change, I used https://envrexperts.com/free-essays/essay-about-cause-and-effect-climate-change for this. It would be better if I went to the courses and paid this amount of money. So I would immediately be a specialist in a narrow field of activity.

thanks