With Notre Dame’s tuition increasing by 3.8% this coming year, some students have undoubtedly started to think of alternative, even crazy, ways for paying for their college educations. Understandable, “desperate times call for desperate measures”, but let me offer you one piece of advice that I strongly urge you to follow: do not sue your parents.
I only bring this up because a high school senior from Lincoln Park, New Jersey is trying to do just that.
Rachel Canning has filed a lawsuit, attempting obtain money for financial support and college tuition from her parents. In addition to that, she is demanding they pay for the tuition of her last semester in private high school, current living and transportation expenses, and legeal fees that entail the entire suit.
Although teenage Canning claims that her parents forced her out of their home, her parents say she voluntarily left due to not wanting to obey to their rules.
The eighteen-year-old has already hit the first roadblock in her lawsuit, as the judge overseeing the case denied her current request for expense payments. The question now remains: what were the true reasons for Canning’s leaving of her childhood home.
Now before you immediately peg this girl as a crazy, immature adolescent with a rude awakening in her future, as I did, it might be good to hear about who this girl really is.
As an honor student and a cheerleader at a Catholic high school, Canning alleges that she was experiencing severe emotional and psychological mistreatment from both her parents.
As Canning said, “I am a very good student. I have no drug problems. I am a good athlete. I work at a job outside of school. My parents simply will not help me any longer, and they should be required to provide for my support and education until I can stand on my own two feet.”
Even more peculiar are her parents claims: that they have been completely framed as horrible parents, when in reality they have really provided the support system an average teenager would need.
Last October, Canning was suspended from school for skipping class, and upon finding out, her parents grounded her by taking away phone and car privileges. With this grounding, the teen took to running away from her house and she hasn’t been back since.
While legal proceedings are ongoing, Canning does not appear to be able to win this case (and rightly so, in my opinion).
Before you start to look at taking up legal actions to start paying for your college tuition against whoever you can think of, you might want to consider some other options. All over the country, students are finding alternative ways to pay for their college education.
From creating your own bridal accessory service, as one senior at Luther College did (BirdcageBridal.com), to starting a blog asking people to donate to your tuition expenses, as a Northeastern University grad did, the ways to pay for college appear to be endless.
While Rachel Canning’s motivation behind bringing up this lawsuit is questionable, you can’t blame her for trying to avoid the debt that college entails (well maybe you can). Although it may be tempting to do the same for yourself, I can pretty much guarantee you it will not work and there are better ways to pay for your college. Just don’t sue your parents.
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