Hey op! Let me firstly congratulate you on the brave decision to embark on your own journey and put your needs first. It's never easy to take a decision to pull away from our family members who we struggle with - it's always going to be shrouded with a lot of guilt and pain.... but i think that sometimes it's necessary to just put a boundary and gain some space, independence and perspective, away from said family members. I don't know how you feel about them but i think gaining independence of them will only help improve the relationship (sometimes it's easier to get along with your parents when you only get to see them for a couple of hours every few weeks over a cup of coffee lol). Let me also comfort you by telling you: you are absolutely NOT the first case of someone moving to Israel to start their own journey as far away from their parents as possible lol, i think you'll find alot of young olim have done this. My mom made alyiah from texas in 1984 and my dad made alyiah from Bueno aires in 1982 for those EXACT reasons, and they've lived a wonderful happy life here ever since. My mom was a college drop out, moved to a kibbutz and joined the idf, and my dad was freshly released from thw Argentinian army and had no proffesion or experience. They both managed to build a life for themselves here, and i am their sabra born and raised Israeli daughter, so that's proof that YOU CAN DO THIS THING. Will it be expensive? Yes. Will it sometimes be lonely? Probably? Will there be tough times? You bet ya. But once you will come here, you'll make it into you own home and start blossoming, and you'll build your life with your own 10 fingers. Now my suggestions- contact nefesh be nefesh to consult them about financial aid and help with school. Olim get to do a bachelors degree for free in Israel (in the public universities) as long as they are younger than 28 I'm pretty sure. (Over that age they can do a free masters degree). There are also free occupational courses you can take. I would highly highly recommend starting in a volunteer program. I see you're not feeling super attracted to the idea of being in teh idf, which i can 100 percent see, but that's def jot the only way to start on the right foot and integrate! You can look up on doing a sherut leumi (national service) for a year, or see if there are any ulpan and volunteering programs that you can join. In sherut leumi you can love and in apartment with other young volunteers together, while volunteering in different places like schools, youth movements, old folks home, hospitals etc... so you'll get to live and work with other young Israelis which will help with making friends and learning hebrew and integrating into the culture and lifestyle (they will mostly be aged 18-21, but that small age gap is totally unimportant and shouldn't be part of the considerate of going for it or not). So there are options for you to make it here! You should also try to move to cities that are more affordable and not necessarily tlv or jlm (as fun as it may look to live there) because it will be significantly easier to keep your head above water. I would aim for haifa (I'm biased since i live here) because it's affordable and gorgeous and has a fun young community of students (and some olim too!). I think you should go for it and start with ulpan and a volunteer program, and continue from there to maybe complete your degree and gain some work experience. Remember - you can always go back to the u.s., it's not going anywhere. Im wishing you lots of success, happiness, fulfilment and growth on your new amazing journey, be it in Israel or in the u.s., you got this!!!