If you happen to be a huge patriot, or really love the university system, I’d advise you to skip this post. Because I’m upset, and this is going to be rambly, and I won’t be polite the whole time.
So, I’m 18 and I live in Maryland with my boyfriend and his family. I moved here in September of 2011 with my mom. After I graduated, my mom and her family moved to New Orleans(my mom moves pretty frequently). In the fall, I went to my first college, which I hated. So, I got everything ready to transfer in November, went through a huge process to transfer, and failed. The system had a glitch that told me my application was due at a later date than it really was, and therefore, my application was deferred to the fall 2013 pile. Which sucked. Mostly for N’s parents, because they realized they had to deal with me WAY longer than they had ever expected. (They really are the nicest people I’ve ever met. I would’ve kicked me out by now.)
Now, I’m dealing with a whole bunch of financial crap. I’m 18, and have always grown up knowing that my parents weren’t planning to help me pay for college. It was just a fact of life. Now, I’m wishing I had grown up knowing this and doing something about it. I wish I had gotten a job the moment I could, and really worked my butt off. I wish I was prepared. I wish I knew how to be 18. Why don’t they teach a class on this? It’s ridiculous.
Now, why do I hate the education system in America? I have never expected to receive any money from my mom. Although, apparently America thinks I should. And as an 18 year old, they still call me a dependent of my mother, and expect my mom to give them her tax information. Because they want to verify that she is broke, and honestly has NO money. My mom has 100 dollars in her bank account right now. I have 1807. And they think she is more qualified to pay for my education. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that I’m downing on my mom. She’s an incredible woman. But she has three small children, and one has medical issues that cost 1400 dollars a month, and that kind of takes up all of their income.
So, in order to combat all this issue with financial aid and that, I decided to become emancipated so that I could be considered completely independent. Oh wait. I’m 18. I can’t be legally emancipated. I’m already a legal adult. Except for in the university system…See my issue?
-Abby
I had no idea! Keep us posted. I’m very interested in seeing how financial aid works in other states. My experience (or at least what I remember of it) was very different from yours and from my current students. In GA we have a scholarship that pays a good portion of the state’s students tuition. It sounded great but what I see is the constant stress these kids put on themselves to maintain a GPA to keep it. I also see it semi-inflate GPAs (not from my department’s help, that’s for sure). I’m not sure what works. All I know is that I have loans and that’s what seems the most natural to me.
Yea, I’m currently going through a lot more than I’d expect the other kids to be going through, especially since my mom isn’t exactly right here to fight my fights for me. And since she doesn’t live in the state, I’m apparently no longer applicable for half of my grants. Because even though I’m 18, I’m “dependent” on her. BUT if I try to emancipate myself, I can’t. Because everywhere but the university system, I am an independent adult. And as far as loans go, I’m okay with having some but I’m really just trying to get the most I can without having to keep paying it back as an adult. I don’t want to be trapped monetarily just because I had a college education, you know?
Oh I totally get that and I think you should do what makes sense to you. I can’t imagine going through all the financial aid stuff alone. I had no clue what I was getting myself into but I’m not mad when I pay my loans each month (I’m obviously not thrilled about it either).
Since I went to grad school too I got to put of paying even longer which was kind of nice. Do you have any scholarship opportunities? This might not be the right time of year for applications for them
All I can say is that it gets better. It seems like a huge pain right now and school probably does to but I don’t know many people that have said it wasn’t worth it.
I’m going to fight for as many scholarships and as much extra money as I can. And I plan to work 2-3 jobs this summer to get a car and become a “real” adult. It just wears me out, trying SO hard to fix things when the next day something unexpected is wrong.