Are you struggling to make income to pay your way of living? If you are, you might be thinking about going to college to better yourself and land a higher paying job. Have you done your research about the cost of college? Paying for college can be just as stressful as where you are today. For instance, you'll be encouraged to apply for a pell grant to cover your cost of tuition. The pell grant is a wonderful program, I had 4 of them. They are easy to apply for and if your low income you will be approved for $5000. You can apply for this per semester. Most tuition averages $2500. You can also get in touch with career pathways which helps get you free books and often a gas card if you are working as well as going to college. So tell me, can you work 40hrs and go to school full-time? You must go full-time to get $5000 or else half-time is half the pay. Can you live on $2500 for 5.5 months?
Most likely not and you will be tempted to apply for a college loan and you will be approved to get it as long as you have not ever applied or have once abused the privilege. The loan should be for $10,000 per semester. My college told me that they are paid $15,000 per student per semester from the government. And the government is giving you a free $5000 grant as well. The college pays out in 2 payments per semester. You can apply for a grant and a loan per semester of college. There is a limit to grants I think it is about 8, as far as loans it is an amount figure and it was high. As long as you are in college you will not be asked to start paying the loans. When you are done educating yourself you will have 6 months to gain employment and start paying paying for those loans. I did 2 years for my Associates Degree in Health Information Technology. I still have not been able to find work in my field. I owe over $30,000 in loans plus interest. In my area and my disabled husband and 2 kids right now it would cost me money to go work for money. I wished now that I had never went to college-or at least invested the loan money more wisely. However it had to cover my living expenses and repairs to my ever so failing house. The kicker for me is even though I have my AAS in HIT the field still requires me to have a certificate of coding and billing to work at some of these places online. It cost less then my degree and anyone can get certified. ANYONE without going to college. My advice to you is invest that loan money in a more productive way to help you in your future if you can. Or skip college and pay for little education in small amounts of money. Business's want you to have the skill set not necessarily a degree. In fact I did my clinical at a local doctors office. The doctors wife ran the office, she had no training in billing or coding. She learned hands on by calling the medicaid offices or medicare or any other health insurance. Her front desk workers who made appointments, took payments, did filing, billing and coding had no training other than on the job. I was not offered a place there for employment but given a great performance review. She was 2 months behind in billing, with my help I brought the office back up to current-which means I helped earn them thousands of dollars. To have a person employed in office or at home doing nothing but billing pays for itself. On this site you will find helpful links that I think may help benefit you in your journey. Thank you for visiting.
