College Financial Assistance: Fill & Download for Free

The biggest problem would be for college applicants who need financial assistance, since the federal DOE handles a lot of college financial aid.Some schools in poorer areas would also have a brief hiccup in their funding, until the states took over funding for those schools.Students who get free or reduced lunches might also see a brief interruption in that program. They’d have to get their own lunch for a few weeks, until new funding sources for the free and reduced lunches could be found.Actually, now that I think about it, the Department of Agriculture might already be in charge of those school lunch programs. If not, they could take them over pretty easily.Other than that, most people wouldn’t notice. Each state has its own DOE, which does most of the regulating of schools.

My daughter was on “welfare” for several years so I can shed some light.My daughter “Betty” was a single Mom and ex Army veteran with an ex-husband who lived with the woman he had cheated on Betty with who had a good paying job. “Jerry’s” new girlfriend made enough money so he didn’t have to work and therefore wasn’t required to send child support to her and his daughter. Betty was going to school to become a nurse so she could support her daughter and herself. After living with me for almost a year, I was helping her financially enough so she could afford a small one bedroom apartment for the 2 of them. Still, she had no car so had to get up early to take the bus to get her daughter to daycare and then get to the community college for classes. Betty applied for and received a Pell Grant as well as financial aid. She was grateful to have food stamps but had to walk or take the bus for groceries if I wasn’t there to take them. Betty applied for about 15 different scholarships each year to help with expenses like books, tuition and such, and because she was a good student, won many of them. If she wasn’t on the bus getting to classes, she was at home studying. Life was a struggle for Betty, between trying to give her daughter a good life and still stay positive and upbeat. But she kept her eyes on her goals and never wavered. Betty was one of ten students who received an award from the county supervisors for persevering and completing her studies and getting a degree in such challenging circumstances.Fast forward several years: After getting her Associates Degree in Nursing, Betty applied for a job at the Veterans Administration hospital and was one of the 9 RNs to get a job out of 400 applicants. While working at the Spinal cord Injury Unit at the VA for 3 years Betty went back to school at the university and got her Bachelor Of Science in Nursing degree.It’s hard to express how proud I am of Betty. She did what she had to do to be successful and raise her daughter. Yes, she had food stamps and financial assistance but without that safety net she wouldn’t be where she is today.Financial assistance, or welfare, gives people who may be temporarily in need a leg up until they are able to support themselves.Addendum: I truly hope that since COVID-19 has decimated the lives of millions of Americans, there is a renewed respect for caregivers, healthcare workers and empathy for those seeking federal help just to buy food, pay rent and basically survive during this crisis. Please wear a mask and be safe for everyone’s sake.

I turned down MIT, Caltech, and Harvard. The former two for undergraduate studies and the last for graduate school. For undergrad, I turned down MIT and Caltech (my dream school since the 5th or 6th grade) to attend the University of Chicago on a full scholarship. MIT and Caltech offered some financial assistance but I didn’t want to unduly burden my parents, who had very little in savings and who had to support my sister who would be off to college the following year. As for graduate school, I chose UC Berkeley over Harvard, but not because of money. Both schools offered me four-year fellowships to their doctoral programs in English Literature. I chose Berkeley because Harvard’s English department was fraught with internecine conflict at that time.Did I make the right choices? I don’t know. I ended up dropping out of UC Berkeley after one year to become a software engineer. So my liberal arts education didn’t really serve my eventual career choice. On the other hand, I don’t know how well I would have fared at MIT or Caltech, where I’ve heard many students are overwhelmed by the rigor of the education and the competitiveness of the environment.Do I regret my choices? No. The sum of the choices I made in life have led to me where I am now, happily married, retired, and a proud father. I’ve also learned that intelligent and creative people come from all walks of life and education. Some of the most brilliant engineers I’ve worked with attended no-name schools or did not attend college at all.