<p>I am looking for information for a friend. She is recently divorced, after being a stay-at-home mom for the past 17 years. Her spousal support has run out. She has no marketable job skills and is trying to find a program that will pay not only tuition but living expenses so she can go back to school. Is there any such thing?</p>
<p>She lives in Washington (state) and wants to enroll in an online program to give her flexibility with her kids etc. </p>
<p>My best guess is that she will have to take some loans and earn some income somehow, just as traditional students are generally expected to do, and that there is nothing out there that will basically support her while she earns a degree, but I don't know. She doesn't seem to be able to get good information locally, and is confused about what opportunities might be out there for her, so if anyone can give me the general lay of the land so I can try to help her, that would be great. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>If she does not already have a bachelors degree (and her income is low), she will be eligible for some grant aid. The maximum Pell grant is $5550 a year for students with a 0 EFC. That combined with loans that she will be eligible for will help pay for school.</p>
<p>If the school is an online school then there will probably be no living allowance built into the COA (Cost of Attendance) on which financial aid is based. Has she looked into local community colleges? I went to a community college and took a mixture of online and live classes. Found it worked well for me. And the CC I went to did include living expenses in their COA which meant I had some left over FA money to help with living expenses.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply swimcatsmom. Assuming that the Pell grant wouldn’t cover the full COA, would the rest of her financial aid package be loans and work-study most likely? And would schools generally allow her to reduce that self-help portion if she brings in other money from programs specifically designed to help women re-enter the workforce? If she gets food stamps, would that impact her financial aid (or would the financial aid impact her food stamps eligibility)?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>it really would depend on the school and what sort of aid they have. The CC I went to the COA was around $10k a year so the Pell, a small SEOG, and some loans covered it. They did not offer anything in the way of institutional aid. The 4 year state U I have just transferred to has a higher COA of around $20k. I got a small scholarship based on my CC transcript, and that with the Pell and higher loans meets my COA. One thing she could check into is if her State Us have any agreements with the CCs. In our state you are guaranteed to be able to transfer from a CC to the 4 year if you meet a minimum GPA requirement.</p>
<p>If her AGI is below $31,000 (and she has dependents) then she should qualify for the auto 0 EFC (Receiving food stamps is one of the possible criteria as long as she meets the income limit).</p>
<p>I don’t know about the food stamp eligibility. I knew someone who was on FA but still really struggling and they were told they were not eligible for food stamps unless they also worked a certain number of hours a week. But there were no kids involved. So I really don’t know.</p>
<p>I know this is water under the bridge but why did she wait until the Spousal Support ran out to make this decision? It certainly would have been easier to do earlier.</p>
<p>I agree that she should have dealt with this while she still had the spousal support, but I think she was in denial then or something. She also had some other kid issues at that time complicating matter.</p>
<p>I think she should check with her state employment office and dept of social services re the displaced/retraining benefits and food stamp/other benefits she may be qualified for. These vary by state…having children at home will likely make her eligible but, in my state, student aid is considered a resource. I’m not sure what you mean by not getting good information locally - if it’s difficult to get into these offices, perhaps a local community action agency could help.</p>