Dropping Out of College: Its About Money

A new study has found that most of the time students drop out college because of money issues. Grades may go down and kids drop out, but it could be that their jobs are so demanding they don't have enough time to study.

DREAMers don't have many options but to work lots of hours while in college. Other kids don't take out student loans, saying they don't want to be stuck with the debt. They have a point, I'm sure they have friends who went to college for a while, dropped out and still have thousands of dollars of student loans to repay.

But if a student can make it with a student loan and a small amount of work study, its really worth it. It will be easier to make good grades. Also, and this is important to remember, some colleges offer incentives ($) to graduate in four years.

While many students are really hard up, there are some that have hefty car payments, Blackberry's or IPhones etc. Some decide to get married younger and have kids (sorry, I love kids, had a couple of my own, but having a kid while in school can spell the end of a college career, especially if you are female). Its a choice towards a long term goal. Can you live without a cell phone? Do you have to have a new car? Do you have to get married now?

While the economy has limited the number of scholarships available, there are still many out there.

see dreamacttexas posts for scholarship information:

http://dreamacttexas.blogspot.com/2008/07/list-of-scholarships.html

http://www.latinocollegedollars.org/

For Graduate School (if you want to be a college professor) consider the Ford Foundation Fellowship. It is highly competitive, but its always worth applying.

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December 9, 2009, 2:48 pm

Study Sheds Light on Students Leaving College Early

By TAMAR LEWIN - New York Times

In the popular image of college, there’s dorm life, full-time classes, football games, parties, maybe a part-time job — and then, four years later, a degree.

But for most students, it doesn’t work out that way. About 2.8 million students enroll in some form of higher education each year. But finishing what they start is a different matter: Only one in five of the students who enroll in two-year institutions graduate within three years. And even at four-year colleges, only two in five complete their degrees within six years.

On Wednesday, Public Agenda released an interesting study, “With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them,” on the college dropout problem. (The study was underwritten by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.)

Public Agenda surveyed more than 600 young adults, 22 to 30, who had done at least some college coursework, and compared those who left before getting a degree with the experiences of those who completed a two- or four-year degree.

The differences are vast. Among those who dropped out, nearly six in 10 were getting no help from their parents in paying tuition. Among those who got degrees, more than six in 10 have help from their family in paying tuition.

About seven in 10 of the dropouts said they had no scholarship or loan aid; among those who got degrees, only about four in 10 went without such aid.

The top reason the dropouts gave for leaving college was that it was just too hard to support themselves and go to school at the same time. Balancing work and school was a bigger barrier than finding money for tuition, they said. In fact, more than a third of the dropouts said that even if they got a grant that covered their books and tuition, it would be hard to go back to school, given their work and family commitments...link to complete article