[fusiongyro]

You should come to New Mexico Tech. We have a great CS program which is essentially throwing you in the deep end and seeing if you can swim. We are far, far away from your overbearing family and whatever horrifying social situation at your old school, over here in Socorro, New Mexico. Even if you got no financial assistance at all, you could pay for two or three years just with the 18K you have saved up now, and that's out-of-state tuition. In reality, with a decent GPA they would probably pay half and in a year you would qualify for in-state tuition cutting it in half again. The students here are mellow and have nothing to do but study. A low key environment, you would be a big fish in a small pond.

Worked for me. :)

[rdouble]

Your math seems off. I looked at the New Mexico Tech website, and it estimates that the costs per semester are around $15,000.

http://www.nmt.edu/tuition-and-fees

[fusiongyro]

Tuition seems to have gone up since I last looked.

$4K of that cost is based on staying in the dorms. You can rent a house for $800-1000/month in Socorro, split 2 to 4 ways, and there are studio apartments in the area for as low as $250. Still, these costs are essentially for your first year; after that it goes down considerably, and if you have a 3.25 or 3.5 you're eligible for a $4/5K/year transfer scholarship.

I have no idea where they got that $1600 "travel" cost estimate from.