I agree.. it sucks. And without college, then does that mean the rest of your life will be just meaningless mediocrity :( ?

It is what you make it. Bill Gates didn't complete college.

That says a lot.

Big schools have a lot of money to give their students. If that's any reassurance.

Apply and review your FASFA opportunities, and contact the schools you are interested in to see what kind of aid is available.

I'm sure you can come up with something.

Loans and grants.

"Need" is how I receive most of my financial aid. If you're willing to work hard for scholarships / grants, make an account on FastWebs.com. It's free, and sends you a continuous slew of scholarships / grants that you are eligible for. (You have to fill out a fairly in-depth survey that will match you with all financial aid that you can apply for as it comes available.) Even if you have to write a ton of essays, it would all pay off if you landed one of the big national scholarships you can find through FastWebs.

As I said, I'm from a middle class family. As such, we have too much money to be considered "needy" but too little to actually pay for the college. The FASFA seems to be a complete joke...they think we can afford pay 20% of our annual income. Do they think every family has that much extra money floating around? We also don't appear to be "needy" enough to have any shot at winning need-based scholarships on Fastweb, which seem to account for at least 75% of the scholarships...

Gah, it's just frustrating. I earned my grades in my classes, but now it seems like it was all for nothing. I don't really expect anything to change...I'll probably just end up going to the state college. I'm just venting here, hoping and praying for a miracle (because that's the only way anything will change).

Can you start small and work your way up? What I'm saying is to try the stare college for a year or two. If you can afford to move away from home that may also help. The goal being, getting away from your parents' income. Then try for some scholarships and maybe transfer to your chollege of choice later. I don't know what your academic goal is but if it's post graduate then get your undergrad at the state college and try for graduate school at your perferred college.

We took a second, closer look at our finances and consulted a few people who were already going through college and found out that we can actually afford U.C. Davis if I don't stay in the dorms all three years (which I wasn't planning to do anyways)! I still won't be able to pay for my top choice college (which was private), but I'm content with Davis. Thanks, everyone.