Sorry, I just find it completely unbelievable that you tried hard enough to get the money. There are scholarships for being left-handed, for for being in certain degree programs, or for being from certain counties in certain states. I got scholarships because I was in FFA in high school, and a few from my extracurriculars.
Then there are student loans. And grants. And personal loans. And most schools have work-study programs for those in need of some financial help.
And if they're merit-based and you can't get them, what are you doing in college anyway? If you can't maintain good grades, you shouldn't be pursuing a degree. It IS hard, it's supposed to be hard, and you're supposed to be smarter than the average person, which means you can manage it.
I worked my ass off in high school tracking down various scholarships (all hard copy, this was before Google). I spent about 4 hours a day in the library my entire junior year, because I knew there wasn't any parental funding for me to fall back on. And I managed not even to need a job until my last semester. The money is there. It takes work to get it, but that's the point.
I used every avenue available to me - the vast majority of them were closed off because I made the decision to leave my home state to go to school. This meant that neither the state the school was in nor my home state had any interest whatsoever in me. Every dollar from my high school and related organizations went to cheerleaders and football players (who were on free rides anyway).
When I first entered college, my family "made too much money" to qualify for any need-based scholarships that I didn't actually receive (apparently $34,000 a year is a "LOT" of money - nevermind that almost every penny of that was going into medical expenses)
Between myself, shittons of research, and the financial aid officers at my university, we were only able to scrounge up roughly 3/4 of my costs - including loans, grants, scholarships, work-study (Restricted by university policy to working for the university at a maximum of $7.95/hour and a maximum of 20 hours per week and an overall maximum of $1200/semester - becasue that's the maximum amount the federal government will reimburse them for - making it TOTALLY fuck useless) and cost reductions. I was literally told to beg, borrow or steal the rest, or forfeit what I'd already paid and drop out.
So I took out every private loan I could afford (in other words, the maximum amount I could take out and defer payments) and dropped that useless workstudy garbage in favor of a proper job - which made me far too little money, so I later dropped THAT to start my own company and paid myself out of investor cash and early profits - that is, until the economy crashed and made that business economically unviable. Only THAT option actually let me personally cover my educational costs - at the expense of my grades because that shit is a LOT of work.
Just because it worked out for you at your school and in your personal situation doesn't mean it's possible for everybody. Sure, I could have had a financially much easier time if I'd gone to a cheaper school - perhaps the University of Maryland - or I could've gone even cheaper and gone to Towson. But for various reasons I will not explain, I did not feel that was a better choice than crossing the border to Penn State, and having done what I have done now, I KNOW that was the right decision.
At any rate, the operative part of my previous comment was how politicians make these observations and then go in to work the next day and cancel scholarships, grants and loans wholesale, thus requiring even more people to look towards their parents for money (For example, Pennsylvania still had not handed over ANY money, financial aid or otherwise to Penn State this year - the university is mitigating that out of its own pocket as best as it can this year, but next year things will fall right apart if the situation doesn't change). It's totally reprehensible and an example of just how UTTERLY FUCKING SLIMY our elected officials are. Lets not blame the students for being lazy when we can blame the Yale-educated bastard children making the decisions.