Talk to student affairs. They have many students face this question every semester. They will have access to lots of relevant resources.
The only thing I would suggest is to broaden your horizons a bit. If you don't have a meal plan at the school, you need to be looking for food assistance programs, soup kitchens, church breakfasts/dinners, etc to reduce your cost of food. In terms of income, I'd consider whether it is true that you truly need a full time job or if a part time position (ideally working from home) would fill enough of the gap.
Given that you're in CS, you could look at bounty programs, book keeping (I'm sure you can figure out quicken or excel or vibecode something to automate a majority of the workload).
There are companies that pay people to train their AI models via chatting and providing feedback.
You could work remote tech support.
You could set up a side hustle providing tech support for students, start a faceless youtube channel, start a real youtube channel, etc.
If your dad is no longer contributing due to some medical or accident situation, there are sometimes hardship grants and loans for students.
In any case, if the worst case is that you end up having to take an interest bearing loan for a single semester, that's not the end of the world. If you're agressive with paying it down via being agressive with your personal revenue, you could be done paying it off in as little as a few years.
Not sure where you are, but this chart[0] should be enlightening WRT to current and future prospects.
The bottom line is that if you can get through that last semester and graduate, your weekly earnings potential increases more than 50%.
And according the the US Social Security Administration[1]:
Men with bachelor's degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median
lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor's degrees
earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in
median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with graduate
degrees earn $1.1 million more.
What's more, you mention debt that will need to be repaid if you don't complete your degree "on time."
You need to do what's best for you and your family. And while a semester (4-6 months?) may be difficult, the upside of weathering that difficulty is significant in the medium to long term. Not to mention the additional short term liabilities you'd take on.
Perhaps a part time job as a night-time security guard or other position which requires your presence but not too much mental effort -- allowing you to study while you're on the clock?
Talk to student affairs. They have many students face this question every semester. They will have access to lots of relevant resources.
The only thing I would suggest is to broaden your horizons a bit. If you don't have a meal plan at the school, you need to be looking for food assistance programs, soup kitchens, church breakfasts/dinners, etc to reduce your cost of food. In terms of income, I'd consider whether it is true that you truly need a full time job or if a part time position (ideally working from home) would fill enough of the gap.
Given that you're in CS, you could look at bounty programs, book keeping (I'm sure you can figure out quicken or excel or vibecode something to automate a majority of the workload).
There are companies that pay people to train their AI models via chatting and providing feedback.
You could work remote tech support.
You could set up a side hustle providing tech support for students, start a faceless youtube channel, start a real youtube channel, etc.
If your dad is no longer contributing due to some medical or accident situation, there are sometimes hardship grants and loans for students.
In any case, if the worst case is that you end up having to take an interest bearing loan for a single semester, that's not the end of the world. If you're agressive with paying it down via being agressive with your personal revenue, you could be done paying it off in as little as a few years.
Not sure where you are, but this chart[0] should be enlightening WRT to current and future prospects.
The bottom line is that if you can get through that last semester and graduate, your weekly earnings potential increases more than 50%.
And according the the US Social Security Administration[1]:
What's more, you mention debt that will need to be repaid if you don't complete your degree "on time."You need to do what's best for you and your family. And while a semester (4-6 months?) may be difficult, the upside of weathering that difficulty is significant in the medium to long term. Not to mention the additional short term liabilities you'd take on.
Perhaps a part time job as a night-time security guard or other position which requires your presence but not too much mental effort -- allowing you to study while you're on the clock?
Good luck.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2025/data-on-display/educa...
[1] https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education...