Taking The Right Path

My journey like many others began in high school. Throughout my fours years, we were always told that college was the key to success. My senior year was ending and my guidance counselor sat me down once to discuss my college plans. At the time, I knew I wanted to attend college but never knew how I would pay for it. After a brief discussion on possible college, I was given several applications and quickly pushed out for the next student to enter.

With no other guidance, I graduated from Bulkeley High School class of 2008, one of the capital’s inner-urban high schools with a population of over 2,500 students. When I finally attempted to sign up for college I was faced with financial roadblocks. My first hurdle was signing up for financial aid with a parental guardian. At the time my parents didn’t have faith in me to attend and completely commit to a college. After a long talk and persuasion, my dad agreed to take the parental loan.

After one short semester, my dad refused to take on another loan for the following semester. This caused me to search for drastic measures. I looked towards my peers for resolutions. I found my friends who were attending college without parental assistance where either a parent, had become emancipated, entered the military, or got married. As tempting as these options were, I felt that going to college wasn’t enough of a reason to do any of those drastic life-changing obstacles.

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Fast forward to January 2015, still underage and unable to get financial aid alone, jumping from one dead-end job to another, frustrated, and feeling held back due to a lack of a college degree. I sat my parents down and begged for them to take me seriously and help me with my financial application to attend college. At the time my dad was going through bankruptcy and didn’t care about the financial responsibility that loan meant. I later found out by experience that if your parent gets denied, financial aid will allow the student to take on the full responsibility of the financial aid loan. As I started my college journey again taking a full financial risk, I signed my life away to the government.

Now to the present time July 2017, I am close to completing my Associate’s Degree in Human Services and I hit another roadblock. Once again, not knowing any of the rules of financial aid, I made the mistake of signing up for college courses that I wasn’t able to attend, due to my work schedule, I did not establish attendance and Financial Aid did not cover the course. Now the school is requiring me to make a payment plan I cannot afford to even sign up for another semester.

With building, great relationships with college professors who guide their students through the struggle, I now have been told that as I continue my course work towards a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Services, I will be short $14,000.00 in financial aid and will have to pay out-of-pocket. I feel that my struggles with financial aid have been one that many students have endured due to a lack of financial aid education. All our lives we’re told that college is the only way to be successful, but no one ever tells you the rules and road to get there.

Goal:

My goal is to create a non-profit organization that will have care managers that will maintain college students’ cases. Our organization with be placed in Colleges, as a center for people and students to come to discuss financial options including financial aid. After the meeting, case managers will maintain the relationship and manage their financial status yearly. The purpose of the case management is to help students and families have a better guide every year with financial aid. Make sure students are not overspending, wasting funds, and reminding them of the rules of financial aid.

My goal is to also create a short video explaining our organization organization organization’s mission, how our organization became to be, and how we can help. My goal is for colleges to make our seminar and registration a mandatory requirement before signing up for school.

I want to teach individuals how to navigate their federal financial aid. When I started college and sat down with a financial advisor, they never explained the rules and regulations of Federal Financial Aid, including financial aid limits for my undergrad. Federal Student Aid, An office of the U.S Department of Education, discusses different payer sources for colleges. They list the following:  the U.S. federal government, the state where you live, the college you attend, or a nonprofit or private organization. They also discuss work-study options and scholarships. It then goes into listing basic eligibility requirements. This link can be overwhelming at first glance, it has many tabs and different information depending on your situation. It also continues to explain other circumstances that can enhance your eligibility or decrease your federal aid. For example, if you have a learning disability, your federal aid increases, but if you get busted for selling drugs you lose eligibility or received limited funds. I was able to find another reliable source Westfield State University explaining federal aid limits. This information is key, it can assist students to plan out their yearly expenses and make sure they don’t overspend.

Audience:

My intended audience is anyone who going treach communities to attend college. I would like to start by reaching out to young scholars and their parents, as young as juniors in high school. I would also like to reach out to young adults and older adults entering college. My ultimate target audience would be required to register and take our seminar before they can register for college. This will help guide them through their financial quest (Understanding Financial Aid Limits. (n.d.).

Key message:

My message is to help individuals understand what they are signing up for when they agree to sign up for financial aid. My personal experience has taught me that financial aid isn’t what it seems, and I wish someone would have explained it to be better. The message is, that there are many of financial aid information that I would like to teach young adult and their participating families.

Advocacy tactics:

To achieve my goal of creating an informative seminar and continuous assistance with financial aid, I will have to do agency and community advocacy (Ezell, 2001). I plan to inquire about a meeting with school officials to discuss and demonstrate our seminar and explain what our organization stands for. To reach all school officials (high school and colleges) I plan to write a letter that will explain the importance and benefits of our work, including a copy of our financial aid for manikins.

I hope to get permission to have a small office in every college, where case managers will work and assist students. These case managers will also be required (if made possible) to present a seminar and registration class for all new students. After registering case managers will maintain students’ financial aid cases yearly by assisting students to create a yearly budget.

As for community advocacy, the book states that in community advocacy I should do community education, media contact, and direct contact (Ezell, Mark (2001). I hope to reach out to the communities we will support. I will send out flyers to families via mail or email. I will also try to reachcommunities out to communities officials and families at PTA meetings and community events (informative booth).