Non-trad thinking of returning to Academia...

Applying to College
1

Hi all, I never thought I’d say it, but I’m really considering returning to college to get my bachelor’s degree. Here’s the short story (if that’s possible…)

Graduated high school in the early 90’s (I’m in my mid-30’s) with decent grades, nothing special other than language, computer and music classes. Went to a traditional 4 year school for my B.A. in MIS - buckled down and studied in my first 2 years, so I had pretty good grades (for me - still in the 2.5-2.7 GPA range.) Third and fourth years were significantly worse, economics and accounting badly hurting my GPA (failed accounting 3 times.) This led to me feeling really burned out, not caring as much about the <em>other</em> classes I was taking as well…you get the idea. I <em>think</em> my current GPA at that school may be between a 1.8 and a 2.0.

To help remedy my burnout, I came back home, took a semester off and then went to a local CC to continue my studies in Computer networking. I did extremely well in pretty much all my classes, and ended up with a major GPA of 3.52 and all-around GPA of 3.34 - this blows away my GPA from not only college but also high school. I graduated in 2000 with my Associate’s degree, and boy did it feel good to finally earn a degree.

I decided at that point that I finally needed to start working, so after an initial misstep, ending up being part owner in a family owned business which lasted about 4.5 years. After that, I got into my current line of work, which isn’t typically known for its good pay, but I feel that I could certainly have been offered more, had I already had my bachelor’s degree.

So…I’m trying to see if it’s possible to maybe get some type of grant that would allow me to go back to school full-time in order to finish my degree. I’ve looked into a few online colleges, but as I said, I’m in my mid 30’s, and taking maybe 1 class a semester (I don’t dare take more than that, working full time…I know myself too well) wouldn’t allow me to finish for several years.

I’m sure I don’t have much time left in terms of hours required (I have over 100 for sure), and feel that if I could just go all-out and get this done in the next 1-1.5 years, I could finally earn my bachelor’s, and with that, hopefully get better paying jobs as well.

-BG

2

Do you qualify for federal financial aid? Meaning, you are not in default of any prior student loans and you have not maxed out the Sub and Unsub Stafford undergrad lifetime limits? I will assume these are available to you.

The problem is that for going to school fulltime (quitting your day job), the Staffords are usually not enough to cover all your tuition costs AND cover living expenses, especially for adults who have more financial obligations to maintain.

As for grants to help cover even a part of the gap after the Stafford loans, at best they will maybe cover just a portion of your costs.

As a transfer student you will be low on the college’s priority list for institutional grants, not to mention you may not appear to be very financially needy from the college because the FAFSA EFC will be based on your last year’s income taxes and it appears you have been working full time. (I suggest you estimate your EFC with an online EFC calculator so you know what you are dealing with.)

And on top of that, while your current grades are good (3.34) - they are not in a zone for major scholarships. Though by all means, apply to a few dream schools and see what they may muster up for you.

Your best bet is to let us know what state you live in, what a few of your target schools are, your estimated EFC score, and then ask what a typical financial aid package may look like from the schools you listed. At least then you can start planning with some good gestimates vs. just hoping for an unspecified grant amount.

Btw, if you take only 1 class at a time, it is unlikely you can take out a Stafford loan because you need to be at least part-time (usually equal to about 2 classes worth of credit). While slow, taking 1 class at at time will eventually get your degree, though.

The other route is a drastic lifestyle change - move in rent free with parents, grandparents, friend or relative. That may be enough savings to be able to swing going to school fulltime.

The reality is that college is a young person’s game in that parents often directly help with payments or the kid still lives at home and the kid usually has no other direct financial responsibilities (including health insurance, etc). As a returning adult without that support often take a lot of juggling and rather insane planning and sacrifices - but it is worth it in the end as you already experienced when you got your associates! Good luck!

3

Hi, thanks for the reply :slight_smile:

Happily enough, right now I <em>do</em> live at home with family because with my job (retail sales), plus a rather large debt I’ve been paying down for the last 4 years, and should finally be done with within the next 12 months, I’m lucky to be able to pay all my bills + have just enough to live on (not much in the way of actual “savings”, until my debt is paid off.)

I haven’t seriously checked into everything yet - I only just decided to do some research in the past 2 days or so. Someone had told me about grants you could get for several thousand dollars (potentially) in order to go back to school – particularly if you haven’t yet obtained your bachelor’s degree, which I obviously haven’t.

I’ve never had student loans - I went to a relatively low cost school, and my father was in the military in that state at the time, making the cost even that much lower.

In terms of schools, if I was able to do something like this, I would very likely go to UNO (New Orleans), since it’s quite close, and I took a few German classes there for fun about 5 years ago, earning A’s in each, so my GPA there should be very good :slight_smile:

My girlfriend is actually in school around the world in Adelaide, and her father is partially supporting her over there as well. So for the next 1.5 years or so, I don’t need to “support” anyone.

Sounds like this may be more of a pipe dream than I thought…I may need to go with something like University of Phoenix online. I did some research into them about 5 months back, and they did say that the classes, being online, aren’t a long as a typical “semester” course, so that might be what I need to do.

Thanks,

-BG