That's rough that your parents pushed you to go to a different college w/out that free tuition incentive. Budget was a huge factor for me in choosing a college and heavily influenced me to stay in-state and public, where tuition wasn't high and there were plenty of scholarships. If I were to do it again the only thing deterring me from going 2-year first was the group of colleagues I met in my first week of college, in which we're still friends to this day. I imagine it would have been harder to find friends coming in as a Junior.