Tuesday Roll Call

Good afternoon Crystal and the rest of Illinois!

I am back and the trip was pretty darn good.  We put a lot of miles on and did not even get cranky.  We saw a cousin in Pittsburgh and Liv's friend from New Jersey and her Mom. 

We did not come back with a certain school in mind.  They all are good and have plusses and minuses.  She will apply to all and see what happens.  She also wants to visit Miami and maybe something on the west coast.

The schools in the Carolinas have a crazy In-State vs. Out-of-State tuition difference (out-of-state is 3X).  There is actually discussion of Liv and I moving to establish residency and jobs.  Todd said he would visit and would move once he has a job.  I have ALWAYS wanted to live in that area.  We will see what happens. 

I surely did NOT want to come back to temps in the 20's & 30's!  The weather did not get above 60 and it was so funny to see the locals dressed in their winter coats, earmuffs, scarves and gloves.  We had t-shirts, shorts and capris!  We stood in the ocean and Liv and Todd got a lot of sun.  I asked a local where to get fresh fish and he directed me to the local Chinese Market, where the fresh caught fish were sold out of coolers.  I am in seafood heaven!

I gotta get back to work, but know that I was thinking of you all!

Dawn- Amanda applied to 5 schools.  2 were in state, the other 3 were out of state,  I was glad that Amanda's first choice was in state...because of the cost.  Even with scholarships and grants and the school being in state...Amanda walked away with almost $20K in student loans.  I can't even imagine what it would have been if she would have been out of state.  It's so expensive.  That didn't even include so many of the expenses like moving in and out (we had to rent a uhaul and storage unit).   

Dawn,

My son goes out of state to a an ivy league school. He had scholarships and grants, but he also decided to look for money that is out there but rarely used by way of grants. He made it a part-time job to find non-traditional monies in the way of grants that is out there. He is graduating from Columbia in New York with no debt. We only paid about 6K the first year until he got the grant money to start rolling in. He now teaches part-time in Harlem and is showing kids how to apply for non-traditional sources for grant money so they also can attend an ivy league school and be debt free. After he graduates in May he going to California to work in the film industry from a job he found indirectly from this grant money. His dream is to make documentary films. 

It can be done.

Hugs,

Sharon

Any tips you can share, or point us in the right direction?

Hi Dawn,

He said he just googled "grant money for _________" and he found hundreds of grants for different stuff. He said no grant was too small to apply for. He applied to all of them and was able to slowly pay his school bill down. He treated it like a part time job because it took many hours to find them and apply for them, but he said it was well worth the effort. i agree! He said he applied for grants based on ethnicity, regional grants, grants based on his interests, school work, family trees, hobbies, etc. He even went thru large companies like Subway who give grants to kids in school. He looked into 1000's and found as many. Apparently there is a lot of money out there that is completely untapped and just waiting for someone to ask for it. 

Good Luck!

Sharon

Thanks!