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The influx of students into nursing has increased over the past few years. Expenses towards tuition, books, room, equipment, and related can be huge. Most of the students are trying to figure out ways and means to pay for their college degree. The task becomes Herculean, especially when many of them are unaware of the opportunities and methods to avail financial aid.
Financial aid is available in four different forms, namely, Scholarships, Grants, Work-Study and Educational Loans.
Scholarships are awarded on basis of scholastic or academic excellence, ethnic/religious/minority background or special interests. Though colleges and universities are a major source of such scholarships,they are not the only source. Do inquire about their availability from your school's financial aid officer or high school counselor, who can also provide you with links for further information on the subject. Also, check with local businesses, banks, churches and other such places, which at times have smaller scholarships and since people ignore this, competition is less and it may become easier to obtain scholarships from them. Scholarships are much sought after financial aid, for no repayment is required. Having said that, they invite a lot of applications, thereby making it an intense competition.
Grants are awarded on basis of need of the student. State, Institutional and federal grants ( Federal Pell Grants, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants) are there to assist students but bottom line is that applicants must demonstrate such financial need. Since no repayment is required, grant is also a favorable aid option amongst students.
Work-Study is another form of financial aid where students perform on and off-campus work in trade for hourly wages, thereby preventing any re-payment situation in the future.
Students must submit FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form to apply for federal student financial aid, such as Pell grant, student loans, and college work-study, in addition to the same being used by many schools and colleges to award their financial aid. Silly mistakes in FAFSA, can thwart your chances of getting aid. FAFSA information helps to estimate EFC (Expected Family Contribution) which measures your family's financial strength towards supporting your college costs and thereby assesses your need and eligibility for federal student aid. Schools use EFC and design aid packages depending upon what they assess to be the cost of attending the school, including study expenses and related. Owning a house or getting a good salary, does not devoid you or your ward from getting financial aid. Even if you feel chances of your acceptance for any such aids is low, there is no harm in trying.
Educational Loans are funds borrowed from financial institutions or government agencies and they have to be re-paid. In addition to repayment, there might be interest charged over loan amount or binding to serve in some underserved area. While financial institution loans are independent of financial need of student, federal loans are mostly focused around needs of student and availability of government funds. The Federal Perkins Loan, administered by colleges has interest rate of 5%, payable beginning nine months after student leaves/ drops out of school. Federal Stafford and Federal PLUS loans available through the US Bank or government directly have low interest rates of 2.82% (maximum 8.25% annually) and for Stafford 4.22% (maximum 9% annually) for PLUS loans. Repayment may be seen as a disadvantage by many but fortunately, thanks to today's severe nursing shortage, nurses can now expect to receive assistance in paying back their student loans by agreeing to work for certain private or government health care employers for a specified period of time. Loan Forgiveness Programmes by U.S. Public Health Service are just one of the examples. AmeriCorps also pays off loans for nurses who volunteer to work in certain clinics where the demand for a nursing staff is critical. The Veterans Administration, is a program designed to encourage more of its nurses to obtain bachelor's degrees, will even pay upfront for a nurse's continuing education. Many private hospitals and organizations are eager to attract nursing talent will do the same, but you have to ask. In a nutshell, even if you go for an educational loan, provisions exist to help you in repayment as well.
With intense competition for obtaining scholarships, students and their parents are gripped with a fairly common and oft repeated question "How to get a nursing scholarship?" The answer to this question lies in the following few guidelines and pitching in with your sincere effort and hardwork. Since money is involved a lot, effort invested in going about the process is worth it. We can discuss the procedure by touching upon the following main points,
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Look for the information at right places,
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- Read the eligibility conditions, requirements and bindings (if any) thoroughly, before applying,
- Follow the guidelines strictly,
- Boost your application,
- Find alternatives
Nearly half the battle is won, if you know where to look for and obtain information about scholarships. Let me admit, that it is a jungle out there and far too many web sites which claim to provide you with the best scholarship search engines. Information pool is enormous and sufficient to confuse anyone. Beware! there are scammers out there to cheat as well. So, restrict yourself to the popular and respected search engines only. Consult your high school counselor or financial aid officer of the school and they may be able to help you towards finding information about scholarships. Prefer to use search sites which are strict by privacy policy, provide best results closely matching your profile with the scholarship programmes and provide system to save/ edit your profile, thereby saving you time. Working towards scholarships must start at least six months prior to the due date for the applications.
Many organizations are offering scholarships as an encouragement towards increasing number of nurses with advanced degrees and to help improve the quality of care for patients. Few sites to get you started are American Association of Critical Care Nurses, Foundation of the National Student Nurses Association, U.S. Public Health Service, Health Resources and Services Administration, Discover Nursing Scholarships, American Health Care Assoc. Scholarships, National Black Nurses Association, Nursing Student Loan Program & Scholarships, Minority Nurse Scholarships, Nursing Web Search Scholarships, American Assoc. of Colleges of Nursing Scholarships, American Assoc. of Comm. Colleges (Nursing News & Scholarships), Honor Society of Nursing Scholarships, Nursing Student Loan Help,and the U.S. Dept of Health Loan & Scholarship Info. Before you proceed further with the application, check if you are eligible for the scholarship.
Before you fill out any form, go through the guidelines. It is better to spend a few minutes reading guidelines, rather than submitting an application unaware and than repent later.
Scholarships are awarded on the basis of various criteria including but not limited to financial need, academic achievement, participation in community service in addition to willingness of recipient to work in a usually medically underserved area-after graduation, quality of references, acceptance at a school of nursing, career-goals, quality of essay, complete application, and previous exposure to health care. Though some awards are based solely on financial need, others are determined largely by a students application, so it helps to follow the guidelines in the process.
The application you submit, should be legible (typing is better than handwriting), accurate, complete in all respect and include application fee if required, unless a waiver of fees has been granted, include letters of recommendation, transcripts or other documents if they have been requested and it should be mailed to the proper address with the correct amount of postage. While filling out the application form, do not provide false information or leave blanks. Recommendation letters should come from respectable people in the society, more so from those who have supervised your work in a true sense.
Your personal statement forms is an important aspect of your application and it may boost your application to the extent of getting a scholarship aid approved. Before you write an essay, prepare an outline draft and note down relevant points. Once you finish writing the essay, check for spelling, grammar and syntax errors. Get people to proofread and critique your essay. Remember that this may be one of the significant criteria working for or against your application.
Apply to as many scholarship programmes as you can, but only after ascertaining your eligibility and reading their guidelines. Unfortunately, if you can't manage a scholarship aid for your studies, do not get disheartened. You can pin hopes on grants, work-study and in circumstances when no other aid is available, educational loans remain feasible means of covering up for your educational expenses, more so when there are options regarding loan forgiveness or payback by employer, thanks to current shortage of nurses and attempts by organizations and health care employers to attract the best nursing talent and retain them. In the end, it must be emphasized that financial aid should not be a hindrance or a decisive factor in shaping up your career in nursing and you should not sacrifice a four-year BSN course for lack of aid. A two year associate courses may appear attractive, in lack of financial aid, but rewards with a four year BSN degree course are far greater to let the aid decide upon this significant matter.
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