By Lissa Wohltmann for LIFELines
Your local Fleet and Family Support Centers can initially point you in the right direction for financial and other assistance. They can direct you to the closest Navy College Learning Center [or Education Service Office] or get you in touch with some military-friendly schools with little or no out-of-pocket expenses.
Yet, if a teenager (or the parent) would prefer to surf the Web for help, Military.com is a great place to search for more than 1,000 scholarships geared towards service members and their family. It can help you find money for college via their GI Bill guide, a tuition assistance guide and an education benefits overview, and give you help in obtaining college credit for military service already completed.
The Military Spouse and Family Educational Assistance Program will direct you toward the Dependents Education Assistance Program, state education benefits, private scholarships and grants, the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges degree, the Spouse Tuition Aid Program, the Vice Adm. E.P. Travers Scholarship and Loan Program, and Federal Student Aid programs.
The Federal Student Aid programs will offer you extremely low interest loans and grants. It is a very valuable program because it pays for more than just the cost of tuition.
“Unlike the GI Bill, these programs are paid through the school; however, like the GI Bill, Federal Student Aid is designed to assist you in meeting the cost of tuition, books, fees, and living expenses while you go to school,” the Web site states. “That means that once the school has taken its share, the remaining loan or grant balance goes to you.”
Merit scholarships are another source of funding. They include assistance in academic, music and sports. Teens should talk to their guidance counselor.
Finding money to pay for college is only one aspect of the higher education search. Other concerns involve: location and size of the school, strength of curriculum in a specific area, extracurricular activities, does the school have an ROTC program and is it accredited.
Military.com also has a school finder with a database of information to more than 4,000 military-friendly accredited schools. It will find schools with the program of study you choose including architecture, military technologies and even visual and performing arts.
FastWeb is another place to search for colleges and money to pay for them. This site also has access to college databases. They boast that they are "the most complete source of local scholarships, national scholarships and college-specific scholarships" with 1.3 million scholarships worth more than $3 billion.
The time to start researching colleges should be early. Cindy Geletske, a Navy wife and mother, started helping her daughter, Christie, learn about the college application processes when Christie was in the ninth grade.
“You start building a resume in the ninth grade,” Cindy Geletske advised. “You are under less pressure if you start early and work consistently.”
