How to pay for college with no financial aid?

How much did you have to pay for college? (w/ financial Aid) in-state California?

• So right now I'm a high school senior filling out the fafsa and was wondering how much did have to pay for college esp. UCs ( tuition, room, personal expense) on your own after grants and stuff. I just wanted to know what i would be in for. Right now my family income is around 30K if that could help estimate my EFC. Also, what do I do after i submitted my Fafsa and my cal grant gpa verification?

• Answer:

  If you have not filled out the FAFSA application you can do an estimate by going here: https://fafsa.ed.gov Scroll to where you see "thinking about college" and then click right underneath that where it says "use FAFSA4Caster to see how federal student aid can help you pay for college!" After providing family income, money in the bank, what your income was and if you have any money in the bank, plus any assets (the home you live in does not count against you but any rental property does & is considered an asset as well as any college funds like an UTMA or UGMA). Pop in the school name (optional) and how much you think it will cost you to go for 1 year (tuition, room, board, books, etc). and hit submit and the FAFSA4caster will give you an estimate of your EFC, if you qualify for a Pell Grant and what you might possibly get for it, plus parent and student loans. It will not provide you with any scholarships that the school may or may not say you are eligible to receive - that is up to the individual schools and the schools would provide you with that information after you have applied and they send you an acceptance letter. When you do fill out the FAFSA application for real it takes a bit before it will send you all the information but it will still provide on your sheet more accurate estimates of your EFC, Pell Grant, Loans, etc. It takes a few months for it to completely process and then the schools that you have applied to can go in and see all the information. As far as the Cal Grant goes, it's a wait and see until they send you an email stating whether you are getting any of the available grants or were denied. Lastly the person who stated that base on your families yearly income you'll get all your schooling paid for free through the government is so wrong. I live in CA, last Jan 2011 was the first time we filled out the FAFSA application. She applied to CSU's, private schools and out of state schools. And let me tell you with just tuition, room & board (not counting books, school supplies, etc.) I would still have to pay over half of the yearly tuition, room & board if not more, plus all the books and supplies, etc! And that was was in CA and out-of-state (OR & WA). We found out from someone working at the local CSU that the profession my daughter had chosen (Athletic Training) would be best served by her going to the local community college where it is less expensive and she would get hands on training the first day where she wouldn't get that at a CSU until she had forked out $20,000 or so per year for general education after the various schools offers of scholarships, the Pell Grant and parent and student loans (through the FAFSA application the school gave her the Board of Governer's Waiver so she did not pay for tuition which is still only $36 per unit, only paid $20 of the $60 per semester parking pass and any she had to pay any additional fees for supplies in the class (for instance $55 additional for the Kinesiology class for tapes and wrappings). Other than that she got some money from the Pell Grant which covered her books and supplies. Yes a lot of kids want to go away from home to go to school but you and your folks pay a lot of money just for the general education when you can pay way less at a community college then transfer (like my daughter will be doing) to complete your education. On another thing, instead of buying books, you can rent books which is less expensive. Unfortunately you cannot highlight in the rented books but you can put stick notes to mark pages if you want. For instance, the chemistry book my daughter needed for her current semester was $165 new, $140 used at the school, the new price was basically the same throughout the websites we searched online. However we rented it from a reputable place online and the rental for the entire semester was $43, and it was free ground shipping to us and same for the return (if you need it quickly the shipping fee for 2 day, etc. is added at a nominal fee). Just a thought. Good luck!