Tag Archives: Education

Distractions

Financial Aid, Scholarships, Study Abroad 3 Comments

Over on our Twitter account, we follow a lot of different accounts that post lots of great information about colleges, financial aid, scholarships, the applications process, and so on. Typically, on Saturday and/or Sunday mornings, I have time to scroll through the feed and see what things I might not have caught during the week. This can be a good way to find lots of information. It can also be bad. Very bad. As in I think I’m moving (financially) in the wrong direction.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a tweet from VolunTEEN Nation about programs to study abroad for high school students. Remember in my last post where I discussed encouraging MM’s love of travel? Yup. It came back to bite me in the bee-hind. I sent MM the link to NSLI for Youth. I honestly did not read the site as closely as I should have, although I did go through it a lot. I guess it’s more accurate to say I didn’t fully understand what I was reading. At any rate, I sent it to MM and she was off and running. I could not have imagined what I started. Actually, I think I perhaps should have realized what my adventurous spawn daughter would do!

Armed with a laptop and a wandering spirit, MM has hatched a plan. She eventually discovered AFS and their programs. They have study abroad programs around the world, ranging from a summer language immersion course, to a full academic year abroad. Nightly, she’d come into my room and lay out her plans. Of course, since this is MM, she doesn’t do anything small or halfway. No sir. She is going in whole hog. She wants to do a full academic year abroad.

Now while this is exciting, I have had a chance to digest it and I’m reaching full on panic mode. Not at the thought of sending my dear, sweet child away for a year. No. We’ll be lucky if foreign governments don’t beg me to take this strange child back. What I’m freaking out about is 1) cost, 2) academic credit here at home, 3) cost, and 4) did I mention cost????  For example, a semester in France costs $12,750! Full year tuition costs are not posted yet, but should be soon. I’m not sure I want to know. MM, who admittedly has done a lot of reading up on this, says she saw that the full year program is actually not a lot more than the semester. We shall see. But, now you can see why I feel like I’m moving in the wrong direction. We’re supposed to be finding money, not spending it!

Buuuuuttttt…….

Being the person I am and the mom I have been, I am not ruling it out. And after a bit of worry about having lost focus on the scholarship search, I saw the silver lining. Like I said, MM has taken charge on this. She has been diligently researching the programs and narrowed it down to AFS based on structure, offerings, etc. I followed up and agree that AFS does seem to be the best fit. She set up an appointment with her school counselor to discuss what she would need to do to make certain this does not negatively impact her graduation date. MM says she reviewed curriculum for the programs she’s considering and said she’d only have to take US History next summer to make up for a missed class. She joined the company’s Facebook page to ask questions of alumni. She is also following up with me to make sure I’m attending the webinars hosted by AFS to find out more about the company and get my questions answered. So, while we have taken a break from applying for scholarships (I am still looking though!), I feel MM has been using her time wisely because she is learning to manage a process on her own and practicing her problem solving skills.

So, the next step is to see if this is even financially possible, speak personally with the school counselor, and go from there.

But, now that we have gotten to this point, I think MM owes me a scholarship application. Mom needs to be kept happy, right?

 

~Mom

Dear MM

College, Financial Aid, Scholarships, Student Loans 2 Comments

Almost 16 years ago, as soon as I got over the shock and excitement of knowing I was going to be a mom, I faced the fear that almost 16 years later I’d be where I’m at today. I’d be sitting here trying to encourage you to dream bigger and bigger, but also to be sensible and make good decisions, keeping your feet planted firmly on the ground, no matter how high through the clouds you soared.

For the past 15 years, I have tried to cultivate in you a spirit of adventure. I wanted you to get out there and explore. The theory that guided me was that you’d never know if you never tried. So when you were not even four years old, we hopped on a plane and crossed the Atlantic for the first of many trips overseas for you. In Kindergarten, I signed you up for dance and cheer at the community center in New Jersey. That summer, I put you on a plane and sent you to another country to spend a summer with family you barely knew. When you were in first grade, I signed you up for ballet and swimming lessons at the YMCA in Connecticut. That same year, I made the commitment to lead you, and several other girls, through the world of Girl Scouting. I introduced you to camping and service to your community. We read books together. Oh so many books. You read me the stories of all of the American Girl Dolls, which lead to your grandfather calling you Josefina.

When you were in second grade, you decided you wanted to play the guitar. Off we went to the local music store and found you a teacher. Eight years down the road, you are now playing guitar in your school’s marching band. You grew into your own skin, discovering your passions. You grew up and left your dolls behind.  You spent your summers exploring ancient Greek ruins and traveling around Italy, touring the monuments of D.C. with your Girl Scout troop, enjoying a girls’ trip to Savannah, GA with our friends, you spent a whole summer camping with me and hundreds of other girls. You’ve done a lot. And every year, I encouraged you to think bigger.

So here we are. In less than three years, you will be setting off on a journey I myself took just 20 years ago.

Like you, I had big dreams. I knew what I wanted to be and “knew” how I was going to do it. So I packed my bags and headed off to the other side of the country. I had found my ideal college. Or so I thought. But there was one huge difference. I did not have nearly as many tools at my disposal as you do today. What do I mean? I’m not the first in our family to go to college, but neither do we have a tradition of higher education in our family. We do not have a family school that everybody dating back to your greattothefifthdegree-grandfather attended. So even though your grandparents were clear that they intended for me to go to college, we didn’t have a plan. I am sure there were resources out there that could have helped me through the process, but I didn’t have anyone to point me in the right direction. My high school counselors weren’t nearly as proactive as yours. Armed with an impressive transcript and SAT scores, I applied to a few schools, but in my mind that was just a formality. I only had one school that I wanted to go to. That was also the only school I chose to visit. (I was flown up to visit another school, but that was not my choice, so I don’t count that).

I got accepted to my school of choice but I had no plan. I didn’t apply for a single scholarship and I only received one or two small scholarships that didn’t require applications. That was a huge mistake because tuition was over $20,000 a year. This was 20 years ago. It’s now over $40,000 a year. Well what did I do? I took out student loans. Don’t get me wrong, student loans aren’t evil. But you don’t want to take out $20,000+ a year! Why not? Because you have to pay them back! I didn’t have anyone there to explain all of this to me. Still, I was receiving a top notch education and I’d have a great career when I graduated, so it was worth it….right??? Well… It would have been a top notch education, if I actually had taken advantage of it. Let’s just say this, I characterize my time at that school as a year and a half long, $30,000 party.  And what a party! waste of money. I didn’t understand what I was doing. I wasn’t mature enough to be doing this on my own. I needed someone to help me navigate this new world.

As you know, I moved back home, to go to school in state but the damage was done. I had missed out on the opportunity to go to school for free in my own backyard. The school I ended up graduating from turned out to be one of the best schools in the country for my major. Had I had more guidance, I would have known this when I was deciding where to go to school. I would have understood the value of what I was passing up. Georgia had just established the HOPE Scholarship. Graduating with my grades, if I had stayed in state to go to college, I would have gone to school for free. Instead, I was deeply in debt and I had basically wasted over two years because, to be honest, my heart was no longer in it by the time I moved back home. I dropped out of college.

In the end, I finally did go back to school but it was so much harder. You were already born and I was working full time. It took me another four years of going to school part time while working full time to finish my degree. Even though it was much cheaper than where I started, I was still taking out loans. I had wasted my opportunities. There was no longer a chance of going to school for free. And because I had a family, a home, and a car note, I had to continue working instead of focusing solely on school.

So here we are, twenty years after my journey started. My college debt has grown. Again, due to lack of guidance, I didn’t know how to handle all of those loans I had taken out so I just avoided them. I put off paying for them instead of trying to slowly pay them off. I deferred and deferred for as long as I could. But I have stopped avoiding and am now paying off. I will be for a long time. This is not what I want for you.

This is why we are doing what we are doing. This is why I am searching night and day for any “free money” I can find for you. This is why you are writing essay after essay. This is why I am writing this never ending post! 🙂 So when I insist that you consider schools in state that you are absolutely 10000% against considering, it’s not because I’m trying kill your dreams. It is because I am trying to make your dreams come true instead of turning them into a nightmare. I will do everything I can to get you to where you want to go. But, in the end, my ultimate goal is that you attend the best school possible combined with the least amount of debt. I want you to finish school and have no regrets and not have any debt. I even want you to enjoy some parties, just not too many! So if you will give me the benefit of the doubt and just consider what I have to say, I am certain you will end up somewhere you love and you will get the best education available and do it all for free. I will give up my first born child if I’m not right. 😉

~ Mom