How do I cover my college costs?

Question

I'm 18-years-old and I'm attending a four-year private school in the fall. I've received around $13,000 in merit scholarship money. However, I'm still short $17,000.

I'm unemployed but my EFC is somewhere like $13,000 based on my stepfather's 2007 income. However, he had an injury and is no longer working. No one in my family is working, and we barely have enough money to pay the mortgage and grocery bills. (Even if they were, they wouldn't help me with school costs though.) But the school's asking for $17,000!!

I'm an Honors student and I graduated in the top 5% of my class. I've always worked hard, but now I don't have enough money and it feels like it was all for nothing. I don't know if I can afford to attend school anymore.

What do I do? How do I get this money? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Try to get another scholarship/grants because some student has more than one scholarships in the same time. Maybe you can go to

http://www.all-about-scholarship.com

it's about scholarships/grants information.

Good luck

Answer 2

hello,

sort of in the same position. did you apply for the fafsa or is that the $13000 you already recieved in money. If not, go try and apply for that & you should qualify for some extra money to help pay. If you haven't recieved the PELL grant, that will help you some, it can go up to I think $4100 or something and you don't ever need to repay the PELL grant back, it's free money from the gov't. sounds too good to be true, but thank god it's not cause it really comes in handy...plus other federal student loans will help lower what you have left to pay...Hope this helps....plz let me know if you find any good grants or loans....

Answer 3

I would try to file a correction to the FAFSA, which you can do on their main web site.  I have never done this and so am unsure how the correction process goes, but if there is nowhere to indicate job loss, I would try to contact somone there directly and explain your circumstances.  If this does not work, try talking to the financial aid director (not a simple worker) at your school.

Also, it may seem ludicrous to you, but if none of this works you could always try a public university.  I am sure if you got accepted to a private school, you'd be accepted to a public one, and remember merit-based scholarships are not affected by your EFC.  Public universities do not have the same problems as public high schools... as long as they're big enough.