Loans, Grants, FAFSA???? Help!

[daniellebluetoo]

Ugh, so after not being gainfully employed for MOST of 09,and 08' I decided kinda last minute to get my Haven't been in school in over 15yrs butt, back in school!

GREAT!...

NOt so much.

I am REALLY enjoying the class's, and am ecstatic that I am not working for the last family I was with (they were a REALLY bad match!)...... But now I am finding that I am REALLy behind the 8 ball, 2 months past due on ALL my bills, and I'm ready to cry.

Because I applied late as in middle of august late, I didn't get approved for financial aid in time, they held my classes for me, but I've had to buy my own books.... THEN I got a letter from FA, needing proof that I was a NJ resident.... My DL is in NY for personal reasons. I sent them that and am waiting to hear back.

I get help form social services, it isn't much, but it allows me to feed me and ds. I've applied for more help, but it's very slow going and I'm afraid of being evicted!

How do I support us (I"m a single mom to one) while I still go to school?
I tried the financial aid office at school, but they weren't much help and had wrong information for me.

Any advice, and loans or grants I can use/apply for? I am very clueless here, but am determined to get this right! I have a pt job twice a week, it's about 100$ but right off hte bat 1/2 of that goes for gas.


Thanks Danielle

[La Sombra]

Danielle, sorry your school's financial aid office was not helpful. That, I would think, would be your absolute best resource for finding good information. I might suggest you give them another go, maybe talk to a different person, and go in prepared (if you didn't already) with a list of clearly explicated questions so they know *exactly* what you want/need to know.

Also, I'll assume your school has financial info online--links to scholarships and stuff like that? Maybe that would be a better, clearer source for you of what's out there.

You won't need to apply for grants; you will automatically be considered for them once your FAFSA app has been looked at. Same with loans.

Your school must have a whole list of scholarship information. Go to their website, or go to FA office; they probably have a whole book you can leaf through of different scholarships through different departments and such.

My community college had and my university now has family or women's resource centers--these exist solely to provide support (financial and otherwise) for parents--especially moms. See if such a thing exists at your school and go visit them.

Also, I was lucky enough to have FANTASTIC academic advisors at both my community college and now at my university. They both were fonts of information about all sorts of things. If you don't have an advisor that you like, it might well be worth it to try and get another if you can. A good advisor can make all the difference.

Talk to other students at your school, too, and find out how they have worked through these problems.

And bug whoever needs to be bugged to get your application considered! That's their job!

Good luck to you--it can be a fairly labyrinth process but it CAN be done!

[lolar2]

In addition to the above, all of which is fantastic advice, sometimes I can get better responses from my own school's financial aid office by emailing rather than calling. So if calling again doesn't help, that's another option.

Your school's housing office may also have some advice or emergency housing help. Also, the financial services (NOT financial aid, at my school they are different) office where I go, does emergency loans for about $500.

Once I had a big non-financial problem at school and kept getting the run around as to who was supposed to deal with it. So I just called everyone with any power whatsoever! I talked to the university ombudsman (woman), to the assistant dean of something-or-other, every office that was even remotely related to my question, until I got an answer. If I ever have a problem like yours, I will call every single office listed on the website that has the word "financial" or "account" in the name. When I made my calls, I made it clear that I knew I might not be calling the correct office, but I didn't know who the correct office WOULD be, and if they weren't it, who was?

[daniellebluetoo]

Thank you!

I checked my campus online account and it looks like financial aid has FINALLY gone thru....... I Do have some time between class's on tuesday so i think I'll head down to the financial aid office them, I'll def print out your post !!!!!!!!