University?

[I_am_not_mafia]

So I just passed my final exams and need to look for universities to go to... I was wondering if anyone could give some piece of advice or tell me how to better look for them?

Additional info: I'm not very rich, in other words, my family can't exactly pay for my university, even though they might be able to help me somehow but I'm not sure I want that...

 I'm practically a citizen of the EU, having a Romanian passport and all. 

The plan is to go and work for a year so I can get myself through college, and, if I'm going to some place like Germany or Austria, to also learn the language at the same time. 

Of course, plan B would always be to stay home and go to a local University but being how my country is the poorest in all of Europe you might imagine that the higher education system is not exactly among the best or even in good shape.

So could you offer any advice at all in this general direction? Even non-specific life tips for a youngster like myself would suffice, if nothing else. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Germany is a good idea because the education will be free. I spoke to a Romanian woman when I was living in Germany and she was moaning at how she felt that she was discriminated against when looking for work though because of her nationality. A German education is good though. I think Finland also pay for your university fees but then you'd have to learn Finnish. German is a much more useful language to learn because so many more people speak it. Not just Germany but in Austria and Switzerland as well.

I don't know how the language compares to Romanian, but I know it's more difficult to learn German as an English speaker than say the other Romance languages like Italian, French and Spanish because of the grammar. But it's actually an extremely ordered and logical language once you have figured out the rules, and completely phonetic. Personally I love the language. It's fun.

Moving to another country is always a good thing even if you return to where you came from. It makes you more worldly and gives you more confidence to change your situation in the future.

Quality of life in Germany is very good, although the bureaucracy will drive you utterly nuts. Sometimes commonsense can take second place to rules. Tax is high as well which means the cost of living is also high. But at least in Germany your taxes generally go towards making everybody's life better.