[rickatheslicka]

Lisa,
Without knowing all the details of your situation, I am a little confused by what you're saying. This is my understanding of how fin aid works: the school estimates your total tuition and living expenses for the year, then subtracts an estimate of what your parents can supposedly afford (estimated parental contribution), and finally subtracts an estimate of what you personally can afford (your estimated contribution). The school WILL/SHOULD find a way to come up with any remaining balance, through loans, grants, scholarships, and work/study. Now, if your parents' estimated contribution is substantial, I can see how you are coming up short every year (since they are not helping you) - all the more reason to try to be declared independent. And if their contribution is not substantial, then I don't understand why you are coming up short, unless you are declining the work/study and maybe some loans.

At least when I was in college, I got a paycheck for my work/study jobs, and I could use that money toward living expenses. On your financial aid award letter, the school will apply your estimated total earnings at your work/study job toward your total financial need (including tuition), but you should be able to use it for living expenses. Get some details on this to be sure, things may be different now or at your school. But even if it were applied to tuition, that would free up money elsewhere, right? Maybe you would have some leftover loan money to use toward expenses.

Like I said, I was in a very similar situation. My parents would have asked me to pay off the PLUS loan, too, luckily they did not qualify for one (too poor).

You really need to talk to your financial aid counselor, clearly you do not meet the obvious criteria for becoming independent, but they will sometimes make exceptions (I believe you would be called "emancipated."). And since your parents insist that you pay back the PLUS loan, you might as well be independent and take them out in your name.

You also need to stop working so many hours. The semester I worked full time, I wrecked my GPA, and even worse, the next year, the school looked at my earnings from the previous year and said that I should be able to pay for my tuition (in other words, suddenly my estimated financial contribution was no longer $0, and I didn't qualify for as much financial aid). I figured out that I could really only make about $6000 a year before it would end up hurting my chances for financial aid later. So I scraped by that year, and the next year my earnings were low enough so that I qualified for aid again. Please don't shoot yourself in the foot like this. You say that you need to work to cover your living expenses, but the school expects you to be saving that money for next year's tuition. It's a backwards way to calculate fin aid, but that's how it is, so try to work within the confines of the system.

Don't be afraid of loans. You can usually take out an extra Stafford loan if you need to, but it will be unsubsidized. Sometimes that's just what you have to do. The scary monthly payoff numbers you see in the brochures assume a 10 year payoff, but most banks will let you consolidate your loans with a 20 or 30 year payoff, reducing the monthly payoff. Or maybe you can do one of the special loan forgiveness programs, like teaching at an inner city school. But you must not sacrifice your grades by working so much or by being so stressed out living with the future in-laws. You can work out something to pay off the loans, it is much harder to work out something to fix bad grades.

So in summary, please talk to your fin aid counselor, I think there are many more options available to you. Good luck and let us know how it goes!