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How To Pursue Single Parent Scholarships and Grants
Let’s face it. There isn’t much time for single parents to go back to school let alone the financial resources to enable your dream to go to Yale or Harvard to become a nanotech engineer or high-powered lawyer at a Fortune 500 company, if you aren’t part of the elite yet. Your live is filled with the joy and challenges of raising your children.
But your dream of higher education remains alive, if you want to. There are ways to find the financial help that may let you go back to school and either satisfy your hunger for knowledge or your chances of scoring a better job. Or both.
Depending on your current situation there are two traditional ways that can be pursued by single parents – specific scholarships provided by a number of schools around the country as well as single parent grant programs (yes, there is such a thing as a “single parent grant program.”) Visit the websites of the schools in your area and search their websites for “financial aid” and “scholarships.”
Scholarships are your obvious first choice. They are available in every state and we recommend that you inquire directly with the schools in your area. Single dads, don’t be discouraged if you don’t find what you are looking for – these scholarships tend to be geared more towards moms than dads, but there is plenty of support out there. Be prepared: In many cases, you may have to go through an interview at a school explaining that you are a single dad with custody of your children.
The most common single parent scholarships include:
- Arkansas Single Parent Scholarships Fund
- Single Parent Scholarships Fund of Northwest Arkansas
- George Snow Scholarship Fund (Florida)
- University Scholarships, including Emporia State University in Kansas, Kirkwood Community College in Iowa and College of DuPage in Illinois
About.com has a useful database of available scholarships for single parents. Click to see the listing here.
Grants are an important financial resource to help you go back to school. Begin your research through the government back to school website, which will give you access to college student loans and grants programs.
A requirement for a grants application is that you fill out the FAFSA application and apply for your federal PIN, which is needed to process your application.
Depending on your present financial circumstances, you may be eligible for several aid packages. Usually you can expect the support of a grant if you want to return to school for the purpose of higher education and your income isn’t high enough to pay for your school entirely. The most common grant programs are the Federal Pell Grant (the grant often mentioned in President Obama’s back to school program), the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG), the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), the National Science and Math Access to Retain Talent, as well as State & Institutional Grants.
Make sure you read through the government’s student aid website to learn which aid programs may apply to you. It is also a great resource to learn which financial aid will have to be paid back (usually loans) and which not.
There are plenty of websites out there that offer advice on grant programs. The majority offer, however, very little useful advice and often link to rather doubtful resources or prize drawings, which you just know will fill your mailbox with spam as soon as you fill out their application forms. One of the more helpful sites we found was singleparentgrants.net. If you want to be on the safe side, educate yourself about available grant programs on university sites, such as the University of Phoenix.
We recommend researching all possible financial aid options and apply for all, no matter how small they are. Remember, the larger the provided sum, the harder it may be to get it. However, if you apply for several smaller grants and a decent scholarship, you may be able to match the sum of that large $20,000 scholarship.
Good luck with your search! Please share your experiences with other Single Parent Gossip readers.
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