EducationGrant often hears from single moms who are looking for ideas about going back to school and the financial aid that can help them accomplish this goal. It’s inspiring to see how many single moms are determined to get the higher education they need to create a better quality of life for their families!
Single moms have many factors to balance when it comes to going back to school: scheduling, child care, transportation, time management, college tuition and fees, money for schoolbooks, and keeping children fed, clean, and rested while mothers work, study, or both. (Not sure how they do it all!) It won’t come as a surprise to any single mother that money, or the lack of it, is the biggest worry that most single moms deal with every day. So going back to school can feel like a Catch-22. To earn more money and make your family financially stable, it helps to have a quality college degree. But to get the college degree, you need money.
Even still, finding financial aid isn’t always the first necessity in ideas for single moms going back to school. Another important goal, especially in this bleak economy, is to NOT end up with a lifelong mountain of student loan debt after you’ve graduated.
Are you determined to get your college degree? Here are some ideas on how to get started:
1) Choose a realistic education goal. Are you going back to school so you can qualify for a particular job or change your career? What’s the average pay for the new career? (How about the pay for an entry-level worker?!) Will this industry still need workers once you’ve graduated?
2) Comparison-shop for the best accredited school and program for your needs. When considering schools, keep these factors in mind:
Where is the school? Can you get to its campus easily by public transportation if you don’t have a car? How long is your commute?
How much time on campus will the program require? Will you be able to get child care to cover the time you want to devote to your classes and schoolwork? (Besides federal financial aid, look for grants and scholarships that provide funding for child care and other living expenses.)
Would an accredited online program work better for you?
Is there an admissions representative at the school that can tell you about the program and what it will require from you?
How much does the program cost? What fees are there in addition to tuition?
Is there a financial aid officer who can walk you through the financial aid process? Does the school have education grants for single moms? (If not, maybe consider a different school.)
3) Fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
This application opens the door to all federal financial aid, such as Pell Grants and low-cost student loans, as well as single mom education grants from individual schools and states.
Federal and state financial aid can be used for any accredited higher education program registered with the U.S. Department of Education as a “Title IV” school. These include community colleges, state universities, and online programs in addition to traditional 4-year schools.
You don’t need to be accepted or enrolled in a school before you submit your FAFSA. All you have to do is list the school(s) you’ve applied to. You’ll get a report back that tells you how much money you’ll be expected to contribute to your degree costs, and the school(s) will use that number to determine how much financial aid they can offer you. If you qualify for a Pell Grant, you’ll get one automatically.
4) Consider choosing the school that will allow you to graduate with the least amount of debt.
Single mothers do it all, and both the news and personal family histories are filled with countless stories of single moms whose children remember and honor them as role models and heroes. A college degree may be your ticket to the quality of life you want your children to have, but only if it doesn’t leave you worse off financially than you were before.
For more college planning details, see the earlier blog-post, How to Prepare for the FAFSA: 3 Pre-FAFSA Steps. You can also find more information about the FAFSA, scholarships for single moms, scholarships for women, adult learning scholarships, and low-cost student loans in earlier blog posts and the grants, loans, and scholarship pages in this site.
And if you have other tips and ideas for single moms going back to school, please share them here in the comments. The very best advisors for single moms are… other single moms!
News stories this week reported that contributions from wealthy donors will result in new college grants and loans for students in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. The money probably won’t be available until next year, but the opening bell for the 2010 FAFSA is only 6 weeks away, anyway.
One happy recipient of a generous financial aid donation is the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky. The Charles E. Schell Foundation awarded the University a $100,000 grant to be used for interest-free student loans. To be eligible, college students will need to be citizens of Ohio, Kentucky, or West Virginia (or some unspecified adjoining states), between the ages of 18 and 25, with a minimum 2.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale.
A little research on the Charles E. Schell Foundation shows that the Foundation has awarded many such grants to dozens of schools in the region, including Ivy Tech Community College, Midway College, Union College, Denison University, Oakland University, University of Evansville, and Shawnee State, to name just a few. If you’re a college student in this part of the country, you should check with your financial aid office about whether your school may have the same interest-free loan program. Clearly, the Charles E. Schell Foundation is a generous supporter of higher education.
And numerous news publications reported a new $200 million grant from investment bank Goldman Sachs to provide scholarships for business students at community colleges. The first school to get money for scholarships will be La Guardia Community College in Queens, New York, but the plan is to roll out business education scholarships to other local community colleges as well. Goldman Sachs also apologized for its contribution to the collapse of the economy a year ago, but said that the apology and its new scholarship program were not necessarily related. But The New York Times could not resist mentioning that Rolling Stone Magazine has referred to Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,” so now, regretfully, I can’t resist either. The scholarships are a good idea, though.
Here’s an excellent quick overview of financial aid from yesterday’s Tampa Bay Informer (”The Good News Newspaper”). Written by María Corral, “College and Financial Aid: Myths and Facts” distills the longwinded complexity of college funding down to 4 financial aid myths and myth-busters. Once these facts are clear, the details are easier to grasp.
It may just be from the chronic strain of the recession, but recent news stories have featured students who have found unusual ways of paying for college. These college finance solutions are not for everyone, but they’re interesting.
“In the Altogether,” an article in the New York Times, describes one Penn State student’s job as a nude model for art classes (you may need to create a quick NYT log-in to see this article). At $15 an hour, the part-time modeling work is double the pay of any other typical work-study job. It sounds as though the worst part of this unusual way of paying for college may be feeling as though you’re not always accurately represented in the art students’ sketches.
Over in England, Dr. Brooke Magnanti, a respected cancer researcher and neurotoxicologist, revealed that six years ago she worked as a high-class call girl in order to earn the money she needed for living expenses while she was trying to complete her Ph.D. in forensic pathology. Her unusual way of paying for college inspired her to keep a blog, which later turned into a book and a TV series in addition to allowing her to complete her doctorate program and earn her Ph.D.
Between the start of the school year and Veterans Day, there’s been a lot in the news about improving college education benefits for our veterans and their families. The Post-9/11 GI Bill was launched in August, but it’s gotten off to a rocky start in spite of welcome new features such as the transferability of benefits. The database problems will get fixed, but both funding delays and program loopholes have left veterans in the lurch.
On Veterans Day, four veterans enrolled in online college education programs wrote eloquently in The Huffington Post about their frustration and disappointment with a misguided housing policy in the new GI Bill. Click on the title to read this excellent article:
Let’s hope legislation filed recently by Congressfolks Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and Bob Filner of California will close loopholes and make college education benefits more consistent across all the GI Bills. (Download a summary of most recent legislation here.)
The Boston Globe today profiled an organization that can help when the GI Bill program is not enough. The Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund raises money through private donations to provide college education benefits to the children of veterans who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. How the MSLF got started and what it has been able to accomplish is a moving story.
Financial scams that seek college students the way great white sharks seek seals are back in the news again. Some scams are tried and true; some are new. Whichever one comes after you, don’t take the bait.
For an update on scams to watch out for, read Kim Clark’s article, “6 Scams That Target College Students,” over at U.S. News & World Report. She provides an interesting refresher on who sees you their favorite prey.
The scams that really stand out are the ones that try to reel you in with scary letters. These official-looking mail advertisements and letters use dramatic and urgent come-ons to make you think you could be in trouble, somehow. (Sounds similar to the email you get from financial frauds, illegally using your own bank’s real logo in the email to trick you into thinking there’s a real problem with your account.)
Any mail or email that claims you have to “Act now!” and “Before It’s Too Late” because “Time is Running Out,” but all you have to do is hand over some money, should be treated with caution. If you’re wondering if the mail you’ve received could be legitimate, talk to the financial aid advisors at your school.
And just because it’s Friday, here’s a gem on scams from the Federal Trade Commission…
The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) is the U.S. Department of Education’s online mega-database of federal financial aid accounts. This database keeps track of all federal student grants and loans (Title IV financial aid) awarded to students through the FAFSA program, including FFELP and Direct Lending student loans.
The information about all these student loans comes from the institutions that loaned or manage the money awarded to borrowers via the FAFSA, including banks, financial institutions, loan guaranty agencies, individual schools, and the U.S. Department of Education (Direct Loans).
The National Student Loan Data System provides you with a convenient way to check on the status of your FAFSA loan yourself, without having to go to a physical location or wait in line or on hold to speak to a bank teller or customer service rep. By logging in to the National Student Loan online database, you can see what your loan status is 24/7 and find information such as:
the FAFSA grant and loan amounts you were awarded
how much money was paid out to you or your school, and when
what your FAFSA loan’s outstanding balance is
whether you are up-to-date or falling behind on any required interest payments or loan repayments
You’ll need a FAFSA PIN (Personal Identification Number) to check your FAFSA loan status at the National Student Loan Data System site. If you filed your FAFSA online, you already have a PIN. If you mailed in a paper FAFSA, you’ll need to get a PIN before you can check your account status.
You can find more information about getting a FAFSA PIN and checking your FAFSA loan status on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page of the federal Student Aid website.
Sometimes the hard part about embarking on a new goal is knowing where to begin. Going back to school is a worthy goal, but with today’s high college tuition and complicated financial aid system, it can require more planning than it seems. For instance: the FAFSA. Understanding how to prepare for the FAFSA seems like a good place to start your back-to-school plan, but actually, the real beginning is a couple of steps before that.
Here are 3 pre-FAFSA steps to prepare you for financial aid applications.
1) Define your education objective.
Are you interested in a career-focused education program that will prepare or certify you for a specific career or job? (Examples of these include a professional diploma in culinary arts or paralegal studies, an associate degree in nursing or medical assistance, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting.)
Or are you looking forward to obtaining a 4-year university degree to enhance your life or advance the career you’re settled in? These objectives are equally worthy—it just helps to have an objective clearly defined at the start, even if you revise your plan down the road.
2) If your education objective is earning a certificate or degree for a new career, do a little research on the salary and working environment you can expect in that job.
Look for the career or job you’re considering on CourseAdvisor.com or the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupation Handbook website. These sites can give you information on how much you’re likely to earn, the typical work-hours, typical tasks, what kind of education and training is required, and how much demand there will be for that job over the next 10 years.
These details are important because they can help you decide how much it makes sense to pay for the education and training the job requires (how much bang you’ll get for your buck).
If demand for the job is dropping, you may change your mind about going to school for it unless you live in an area where there is still a need for that occupation.
Or, if the career’s average pay is low, you’ll have that in mind when you start considering the price of education programs.
3) Do a little comparison-shopping between education programs.
Now that you know what kind of education program you’ll need to achieve your objective and how much you’re likely to earn in the job you’ll qualify for after you graduate for, you can get an idea of a reasonable amount to spend on college tuition.
You may get financial aid to cover most of the cost, but if you have to take out loans, most financial aid experts say you should base how much you borrow on how much you’ll earn after graduation, so you don’t drown in debt. (Here’s where the research on average salary is helpful.)
The goal of these 3 pre-FAFSA steps is to define what you want to accomplish in school and get an idea of what your chosen program is likely to cost. Having this information will help you prepare for how much financial aid you’ll need after your FAFSA is processed.
What do you think of the new TV show “Community”? Does it help the president bring community colleges positive attention or does it reinforce the old cliché of community college as higher education’s Cinderella?
Almost half (44%) of U.S. undergraduates are community college students, earning more than 600,000 associate degrees and 320,000 professional and career certificates a year. Is it reality or fiction that some of those nontraditional students may end up having to live in their cars for a while at some point?
The unemployment rate just crept up over 10%, but back in July, TIME Magazine was already asking “Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy?” and highlighting some of the stand-out benefits and problems of the community college experience.
The American Association of Community Colleges is on board with the TV show, operating on the belief that no publicity is bad publicity and seeing it as an opportunity to create a real “Community” community. While you’re on the AACC site, check out some profiles of real-life community college graduates.
Community colleges have always faced complex challenges, but maybe they really can save the economy.
Nontraditional students often attend community college, which has the flexibility and affordability that work best for adult learners. There are almost 12 million fulltime and part-time nontraditional students from all walks of life pursuing degrees, professional certificates, and lifelong learning at community colleges from one end of the country to the other.
Nontraditional Students Depend on the Lower Tuition of Community College
The relatively low cost of community college is a tremendous benefit for nontraditional students, many of whom may be single parents, workers in lower-paying jobs, newly laid-off workers, or the first in their family to attend college. Despite some tuition increases, a recent College Board financial aid report noted that tuition and fees for an average community college are still only about 36% of the tuition and fees of an average four-year college.
Federal Student Loans for Community College: A Problem Revealed
Since community colleges provide a substantial higher education service to nontraditional students, you may be surprised to learn that many community colleges don’t offer their students federal student loans. That’s the discovery of the Project on Student Debt, who reported last month that approximately 900,000 community college students in 31 states could not get federal Stafford, Perkins, and PLUS loans because their schools chose not to participate in the federal loan program. (Download a copy of the user-friendly report here.)
The main reason seems to be the schools’ earlier bad experience with the consequences of high student loan default rates. In the 1990s, schools with very high default rates were penalized by being shut out of ALL of federal financial aid programs, including the invaluable Pell Grants that so many nontraditional students depend on. After a few close calls with losing their Pell Grants, those schools developed a little bit of paranoia about offering any more federal student loans.
The good news is that loan default rates have improved a lot since then and no community college has lost access to Pell Grants in many years. The bad news is that old fears die hard and today, thousands of nontraditional students end up having to take out private loans to cover the last of their community college costs when they can’t get Stafford, Perkins, or PLUS loans.
Private loans typically have higher interest rates, more borrower fees, and less protection than federal loans, and can turn into unmanageable debt for the students who can least afford it.
How to Find Out If Your Community College Offers Federal Student Loans
What can you do if you think you may need a student loan for community college? Before you apply, call the financial aid office of the community college(s) you’re considering and ask if they participate in the federal student loan program (Title IV). Be sure to ask specifically about loans (Stafford, Perkins, and PLUS loans), not just the financial aid program in general. (All eligible colleges participate in the federal grants program, but apparently they don’t all participate in the student loan program.)
If it turns out that the community college you were considering does not provide federal student loans, you may want to talk to other community colleges in your area until you find one that does. Community colleges fulfill a vital mission in the higher education service they provide to nontraditional students. Making federal student loans available to students who need them should be part of that mission.
News stories this week reported that contributions from wealthy donors will result in new college grants and loans for students in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. The money probably won’t be available until next year, but the opening bell for the 2010 
It may just be from the chronic strain of the recession, but recent news stories have featured students who have found unusual ways of paying for college. These college finance solutions are not for everyone, but they’re interesting.
Between the start of the school year and Veterans Day, there’s been a lot in the news about improving college education benefits for our veterans and their families. The Post-9/11 GI Bill was launched in August, but it’s gotten off to a rocky start in spite of welcome new features such as the transferability of benefits. The database problems will get fixed, but both funding delays and program loopholes have left veterans in the lurch.
The 
2) If your education objective is earning a certificate or degree for a new career, do a little research on the salary and working environment you can expect in that job. 
Since community colleges provide a substantial higher education service to nontraditional students, you may be surprised to learn that many community colleges don’t offer their students federal student loans. That’s the discovery of the