I didn't have any parental support at all through college; actually it was the other way around, I was supporting my mom while my dad was more or less AWOL in my life.
I've worked since I was 14, and in high school I worked 39 hours a week (3-11 PM after school a few days and every Saturday/Sunday) at the grocery store which I absolutely hated but felt trapped in (worked there 5 years) because it was the best paying job for a HS kid and it actually had insurance, which I otherwise wouldn't have had. I was paying the mortgage for my mom's house and all utilities and car insurance etc. as a high school kid, and all food, which sure wasn't much. My closest friends didn't know about that then, and 10 years later, they still don't. I'm pretty good at "keeping up appearances". It's not easy paying for an entire household on $8 an hour, but I did it because it had to be done.
Living on campus was never an option, since I had the grocery store job in the suburbs by my mom's house, and I was taking care of her and still doing everything there. Not to mention living in dorms would've added either $5k per year or $5k per semester (don't remember which) to my student loans, which would've just been stupid when I lived 30-45 minutes from campus. The third year I was in college my grandma died, and left my mom a little bit of money. Coupled with a chance to move into a place on campus for only $240/month with some friends, my mom told me to go (it REALLY was/is better to be living on campus as a chemical engineer).
Around this time I also landed a really nice job for 20 hours a week in a demographic office on campus, doing historical census research for not far off what I was making after 5 years at the grocery store (left the grocery store at $12.60/hr, started out at the demographic office at $10.10 an hour but within a year I was at the grocery store rate of pay) so this worked out really well, and by the time I left that job around when I left college I was up to close to $15 an hour. Additionally to make ends meet for my mom and I, I took another 20 hour a week graduate student position as a chemistry lab T/A that I was anonymously recommended for despite being an undergrad. I was happy to have that job because I wanted to come to Japan on the JET Program after I graduated, which I did; the T/A job gave me teaching experience, almost an internship of sorts. I also took lots of Japanese culture/language courses in addition to my two degrees and all of my working, to further help me land that job in Japan. In the end, I was in school six years and graduated with 200 credits, mainly because I switched majors after two years from undeclared lib arts to engineering.
I took intensive Japanese in the summer of 2006 also (one full year of Japanese in 10 weeks, M-F 4 hours a day, 12 credits), and on the second day of class I found out my mom was dying of brain cancer. She didn't want anyone else to know, so I was literally the only person who knew. Stuck out the classes, despite having to wake up at 3 AM to go try and take my mom to 5 AM radiation, etc., and still managed to study while waiting for my mom to have brain surgery and still managed to get a grade of A- in both "semesters", limited only by attendance deficiencies/tardiness due to radiation. At the onset of my junior year of the chemical engineering program (following the Japanese course, which was actually my fifth year in school) my mom died three weeks in.
The junior year is considered the hardest year, and taking time off wasn't an option. Due to how rigorous the coursework is, I couldn't take a semester off, I would've had to take a whole year off since classes are offered once a year and you are on a set track with little choice in classes to take due to the web of prereqs, etc. That wasn't an option to me as I was already on the six year plan and was plenty sick of school as it was, so I took one week off and was back in school the day after the funeral. It took one full month to catch up in classes for the one week missed (including 5 exams in three days, including two thermo exams back to back), but I got caught up before eventually being hospitalized for a couple days in October for an ulcer. Still went to work, still T/Ad (taught the day after the funeral, actually got notification my mom died while teaching that lab), and still busted balls in school. Finished the semester just over a 3.0.
So all throughout college I worked 40 hours a week as a chemical engineering/chemistry student to make ends meet, and I commuted the first two years. There was no parental safety net, nor was there a fridge to go home and raid when I felt hungry.
Three years out of school and I'm still $17k in the hole for student loans.
I've digressed, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that people who have parents around to rely on should be more thankful for that than they probably are. College was by far the hardest time of my life, and certainly not the most fun, as it is for so many people. In a lot of ways I'd like to go back and do it over/differently, but in reality, no way.
So if you have people helping you out, call 'em up and thank them right now, because the road could be much, much harder.
