In the United States, about 90 million adults are now enrolled in some kind of training or education programme. Every other college student is over the age of twenty-five. Every year, another 800,000 people try to get their high school diplomas by taking the General Educational Development (GED) test. Adult education and retraining are very popular.
Some of the pressure to get more education comes from a job market that wants people to have up-to-date skills, especially in technology. People who have the best and most up-to-date skills are in high demand and get paid more. A college degree can often help you get a better job or move up in your company. The United States Census Bureau says that a college degree is worth about $1.2 million over a person's lifetime.
Colleges have changed the way they offer classes to meet the needs of the growing number of adults who are going back to school. Many well-known universities now offer their most popular degrees, like the Master of Business Administration, in evening and weekend classes. Others offer classes on the weekend, in the evening, and online so that busy professionals can fit them into their schedules.
The rise of the online university is one of the most important changes. There are now tens of thousands of adults getting college degrees "online." They can sign into a chat room and talk about their homework with other students and their teachers. They can study whenever it is most convenient for them. Many of these online schools don't have set semester schedules, so students can start their classes whenever they want.
Adult students, who are sometimes called "re-entry students," can get traditional government aid if they are enrolled at least half-time. Most of the time, this means that they are taking two full-credit courses at the same time. For them to be able to get aid, their schools must have the right approvals to take part in Title IV programmes.
If a re-entry student is taking enough credits to qualify at a Title IV school, he or she goes through the normal financial aid process. The first thing you need to do is fill out a FAFSA, which stands for "Free Application for Federal Student Aid. You can get an FAFSA form and instructions. For students to get into programmes, they need to fill this out.
If a student shows that they need money, they may be able to get grants from the government that don't have to be paid back. The Perkins Loan programme is also for low-income students. It gives loans with very low interest rates that are paid back over ten years, starting nine months after graduation.
Students who go to college at least half-time and keep a C average can get government loans, which also have low interest rates and long time periods to pay them back. Sometimes the government will be the one you owe the money to. In other cases, a student will get a loan from a private lender who acts as a middleman.
Students who want to go back to school should always talk to the financial aid officer at the college they want to go to. Their counsellor can help them fill out their FAFAs and other forms, as well as find a bank that will lend them money through a government programme.
A good financial aid officer who knows his or her stuff can also help students find private scholarship money. Even though most scholarships are for first-year college students in traditional campus programmes, there are over 1800 scholarships for people over 25 who want to go back to school. There are private companies that help students look for scholarships, but most students should be able to do this for free on the Internet or through their financial aid office.
If you are in the military or have been in the past, you should talk to your college's financial aid officer about how you can use your military benefits to pay for school.
Employers will sometimes pay for adults to keep learning. Many employers only want their workers to take one course that will help them do their jobs better in one area. Some employers will pay for you to finish college or even get a graduate degree.
Some colleges try to get students to sign up before they know how much financial aid they will get each semester. To avoid this problem, you can go online, type in your FAFSA numbers, and get a rough estimate of your financial aid package. Before you sign up for tuition payments, your financial aid officer can help you figure out how much this will cost.
Also, you should know how your school handles refunds. Some students find that they can't handle a half-load of college work on top of their work and family obligations. Then they find out that their schools won't give them their tuition money back, either in full or in part, and that getting out of their federal loans will be hard. Before you sign up for any continuing education programme, you should look into all of these areas.
