Funding for Non-Traditional Comp. Sci Students?

chromatic asks: "I've been working with promising prospective programmers for a while. They're interested in college, but as non-traditional students with young families, the financial burdens are overwhelming. We're aware of FAFSA, financial aid officers, and standard grants (all of which have a bias toward traditional students). What other resources (grants, work study programs, low interest loans) should we explore?"

Comments

Re:Clarification

[Mad Marlin]

Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is a non-traditional student?

Generally anybody over 25 or married or not going full-time©

College

[spacecowboy420]

As a non-trad (read "old") student, I made it by with a few things:

1. GIBILL which ran out about halfway through(not available for everyone, but veterans have additional funding available)

2. Get a job, like everyone else, except you can't afford to blow off class 'cause it ain't your mama's money.

I had a full time job while working on my Bachelors, now I am in grad school...with, you guessed it, a full time job...except now my employer offers tuition reimbursement :)

Biased towards traditional students?

[Anonynnous Coward]

(all of which have a bias toward traditional students)

I can't speak to the particular people you spoke with at your particular institution, but I can tell that the Federal need analysis formula:

o in no way takes into account whether you are going full or part-time to school (though you must be at least half-time to receive federal aid)

o uses age to determine whether parents should contribute to the cost of education for unmarried, non-veteran, non-orphan/ward of the court students--this actually benefits older students, as no parent contribution decreases the amount a student is expected to provide on his own

o uses age to determine an "asset protection allowance"--meaning that the older you are, the more money the government says you, the student, can hang on to without being expected to contribute a percentage of it to your education, again, benefiting the student, whom the governemt assumes is saving for retirement as he ages

o does not take into account whether you attend a two-year, four-year, technical, trade, proprietary, or hairstyling school.

Here's federal financial aid in a nutshell. Your school determines your cost of attendance (COA) which includes tuition, fees, books, and living expenses (at your school's discrection). Your FAFSA determines how much you and/or your parents are expected to contribute out of pocket before federal loans and grants (unfortunately, the bulk of federal aid is in the form of loans--fortunately, those are at around 4% at the moment). That number is called your estimated family contribution. The difference between that cost of attendance and your contribution is referred to as "need." So need = COA - EFC. A school's financial aid office may meet that need with federal loans or grants, (and/or with its own money in the form of tuition waivers or scholarships; or loans from banks that aren't part of the federal programs, but those aren't federal).

The EFC formula's not top secret, you can look at it in detail here. You also have access to every piece of information the federal government publishes for aid officers, as a citizen. There's detail, but none of this should be beyond the reasoning of someone reading/posting to Slashdot.

Being somewhat familiar with it, I fail to see how you can say the federal financial aid system favors the traditional student. If the financial aid office where you start out seems to not care about you, perhaps you should find a school that suits your academic needs and has one that does.

One other good sources of information about financial and and scholarships are finaid.org. And whatever you do DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PAY ANYONE A FEE TO FILL OUT A FAFSA. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PAY TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR A SCHOLARSHIP. I cannot emphasize that enough.