Meeting the expenses of everyday living in today’s world of rapidly escalating costs is often difficult for most people. For single moms it is all that much harder. It’s easy to wander onto the internet and find information on loans, but as a family with, at most one income it’s often hard to qualify with the rigorous income to debt ratios. Even if you do manage to qualify you soon have hefty payments putting an increasing strain on an already fragile budget. A recent survey by MSN money estimates that in a single parent family the costs of raising one child until the age of 11 is a staggering $24,940. So how is a single mom with a couple of kids going to afford loan payments, especially when the loan was to help meet basic living costs? For many the financial assistance they need lies in the form of grants.
So What are Grants?
Many misconceived notions exist about grants. The most popular being that a grant is simply a loan with a more user friendly name. Or that a grant is a loan which you don’t have to pay back right away. Neither of these are true. In fact a grant is a sum of money paid to a person without need for recompense. In other words, you don’t need to pay them back. So what kind of grants are available?
The answer is: Many.
There are school grants available for everything from schooling, to personal needs grants, car grants, grants to start up a new business and housing grants. Typically, most “grant” programs are given out to non-profit organizations, businesses, and students. We will look at some of the specific programs later on in the post.
What About a Scholarship?
If you have plans to go back to school or you are trying to drum up money to afford some sort of education program, there’s a number of ways to get that funding. Scholarships are one of the big ways. The best way to land a scholarship is to head to your local college financial aid office and get a list of scholarships you can apply for.
There are even special scholarship sweepstakes offered by websites. For example, one of the more popular sweepstake education scholarships on the web is the 10k Scholarships for Working Adults in which you sign up for the scholarship on the web, then get a chance to win 10k draw towards your education expenses. Any mom or dad can apply for this scholarship. For a similar sweepstake contest, there’s the $10k Scholarship for Mom program . And if you are a dad, you might look at the $10k Scholarship for Dads.
Now there are a few things we need to get out of the way. First off, despite what many other (fraudulent I may add) websites may claim, there is not this giant bucked of grant money just waiting for every desperate single mom to dig into. It’s hard to get free money from the government or any other source. There are no, as far as I’m aware of, federal grants for single mother specifically. There are no such thing as OBAMA grants (this is a scam by the way). The federal government ONLY gives out grants for students, grants for organizations, and grants for individuals. There are, however, state grants for single moms of sorts, and various private grants for single moms. The worst part about all these grants is that due lack of knowledge, much of the funding set aside for these grants get used! So let’s take a few moments to discuss some grants available to single mothers.
Educational Grants for Single Mothers
By far the biggest selection of grants open to single mothers is in the education subcategory. Primarily because the general consensus is that if a single mother can better her life through education, then she will also be able to provide a better life for her children. There are quite a few different sources for mom, as well as government funded grants, money is available from private scholarships and some universities even offer financial aid for moms.
Now by far, the first most widely heard of grant is the Pell grant. The Pell grant is a government provided grant of up to $5550, which a person can use to fund all or part of their studies. While the Pell grant is not solely for single parents, the application for one requires that you fill in a FASFA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) which largely uses incomes based figures to make it’s decision. That means most single moms should qualify. If you don’t want to apply for the Pell grant you could try the Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (FSEOG). Again, you do need to have filled out a FASFA in order to apply. Should you need more money almost every state has a grant opportunity for single mothers. Check out the State Higher Education Agency for more detailed information on what is available in your state.
Source: grantsforsinglemother.com