Free Student Grants and Scholarships For Single Parents

Are you looking for a good job? Then you will need to go to college. You will need at least an associate degree in today’s economy, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman. This is especially important if you are a single parent and have children to support. After all, how will you feed your family if you only earn a minimum wage?

Of course, trying to juggle your job, your studies and your kids together is… tough. To say the least. At least finding money for college is not going to be a problem. You should be able to find student grants for single parents, especially those funded by federal government grants.

What do I mean? Well, government grants for single parents like the Pell Grant are fairly generous to low-income students, even adult students like yourself. You can get up to $5550 (for the 2010/2011 award year) as long as you are a US citizen taking up your first college degree. In fact, if you qualify for the Pell Grant and are in the lowest income bracket, you can potentially get another $4000 from the FSEOG. These two together should cover most of your college tuition fee (given that the low-end of tuition is around $9000). Even if these two grants do not cover the whole of your college expenses, your state government may have its own awards. For example, Nebraska has its Nebraska Opportunity Grant, which it awards to residents studying in local colleges as long as they have qualified for the Pell Grant. Many other states have similar grants for their residents. Any outstanding amount remaining can easily be borrowed from the government-subsidized Stafford student loan.

If you are a single mother, you can get even more college grants for single parents from women’s charities. Women are still considered to be disadvantaged in both college and the economy, and quite a number of organizations continue to provide financial assistance to help them get their undergraduate education. Among those which focus on helping mothers are the Philanthropic Educational Organization and the Jeannette Rankin Women’s Foundation. Of course, these are just two out of many. The others are not exactly difficult to find, you just need to spend enough time looking for them.

But let’s say you are a single father and for various reasons you still need more money to cover your tuition fees. Maybe the government (i.e. FAFSA) decided that you are not in enough financial need (for example, you may be a door-to-door salesman and your travel expenses gets counted as part of your income) to give you more money for your Bachelors degree. What can you do?

In such a situation, looking for other needs-based scholarships is probably a waste of time. You may have to consider going into teaching or nursing. The good point about these two fields is that they have a persistent shortage of local staff, which means you have a job waiting for you once you graduate. Not only that, but these are both considered critical fields and there are federal and state-level education grants available. The federal TEACH grant is offered by the US Department of Education, and the state grants by their corresponding state Departments of Education. The federal Nursing Scholarship Program is offered by the Health Resources and Services Administration and the state scholarships would likely be awarded by the corresponding state-level Health Boards.

Looking for free grants for single parents to go to school is not exactly difficult. Once you know that the free money exists, and if you are willing to be flexible in your future career choice, finding all these scholarships is just a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open (as well as effort).

Author: Katherin T.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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