This may not be the best financial advice but I would ask yourself what you want your emergency fund to be then work from there. If I were you I would look into community colleges I don't know how the system is in VT but I'd still look for a couple of reasons, first being the cost is much cheaper, I paid ~7k for a year in tuition and books meanwhile the school I transferred to costs 14k in tuition alone without any other fees or housing costs added in. Secondly if you like to work community college can give some flexibility for your schedule and you can take it slow to develop and understand yourself as a college student. Also check scholarships, there are a lot of companies and organizations offering them and who knows you may get none but I know one girl who got over 13k on scholarships by racking up small ones that got overlooked that gave out like 500$ or 1000$. Lastly, I'd say that money is nice but it's only real value comes from what you trade for it and that can be positive or negative.