Age 24 = Independent?

Paying for College
21

You need a good old-fashioned training program. Hotel, retailer, restaurant, car rental. If you live near LAX you are in great shape- every major car rental company starts their management trainees at busy airport locations learning how to manage a site. Among retailers, Bed Bath has a great track record promoting and training their front line managers.

A broke civilian can’t make easy anymore- but they can get hired by a large corporation for an entry level managerial position and work their way up.

You seem like a perfect candidate for a job fair- you write well, I’m sure you present well. HR people show up at those fairs with a huge bottle of hand sanitizer expecting the worst. You will be a breath of fresh air.

Google any of the car rental companies and see when their next onsite interview days are taking place. Bring several copies of your resume, a big smile, and you can walk out with an invitation to one of their all-day interviews which is typically followed by a job offer.

If you are geographically mobile (i.e. start in LA but happy to move to Las Vegas or Orlando or Tuscon or Washington DC) you are more than half of the way to a job offer at any of these hospitality or retail related companies.

22

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll have to look in to that. I don’t think I know anybody who does that. I’m definitely open to learning new things, though. Will keep you updated.

23

As an English major, paralegal, could you get a job at a college in your area? Working in PR, cataloging things, etc?

24

The way it works is, if you are independent for FAFSA, then only your income and assets count (dependent students have to put parent income and assets and student income and assets in most cases). So your EFC would most likely be much lower than when your parent income counted. Lower EFC means higher Pell grant eligibility, max is about $5800. Possibly eligibility for other grants or work study and maybe state grants. You can get a higher amount of federal student loan as well as an independent student.

But if college is affordable will depend on cost and max aid available to you.

You will also need enough aid to cover living expenses, especially if you attend classes fulltime, because you won’t be able to work as many hours.