Posts Tagged online scholarships
Free Scholarships And Grants Is Available For Online College!
More and more online degree programs are making their way into cyberspace, and online grant applications and fellowship and scholarship opportunities make it easier to find money to help pay for an online education.
Online degree programs in business, nursing, information technology and criminal justice have been popular offerings for years. Now, college catalogs for the fall 2010 semester and the web sites of virtual and traditional institutions have added a great variety of online classes and online degree programs to the mix. An increase in online degree programs at the associate degree level was recently reported in Southern California, and a university in Memphis is said to have added 18 new bachelor and master’s degree programs for the coming fall semester, bringing its total online degree offerings to 40. Online degree offerings from institutions throughout the United States include philosophy, history, African-American studies, the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects and more.
Scholars have suggested the online education boon could in part be the result of a historically large 2009 high school class and physical settings that can’t accommodate a growing student population. In “32 Trends Affecting Distance Education,” representatives of two universities cited National Center for Education statistics forecasting that online college enrollment would grow 16 percent between 2003 and 2010.
That forecast didn’t include adults who form a good deal of the distance learning population. According to “32 Trends”, the number of adult students between 1970 and 2000 rose 170 percent as compared to the number of 18 to 24-year-old students that increased by 41 percent. And in much the same way that online classes and online degree programs make education convenient, online grant, scholarship and fellowship opportunities make finding money to offset the costs of education much easier. Online education is said to cost about the same as physically attending college, and online grant applications include the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Large companies, non-profit organizations, civic groups and more also make scholarship and fellowship information available online.
The education market has seen a dramatic move from classroom and lecture-room education to online education, a March Marketwire news release announced. Online education, in fact, is growing much faster than higher education as a whole, according to an article that same month in the San Diego Business Journal. More than 4.6 million students enrolled in least one online course during the fall 2008 semester represented a 17 percent increase over fall 2007 enrollments, the Business Journal reported, citing a 2009 Sloan Consortium survey. The entire higher education student population between fall 2007 and 2008, on the other hand, increased by only 1.2 percent, according to the survey information provided.
Online education can be provided by completely virtual colleges or by traditional institutions offering online classes and degree programs. In some instances, distance learning offerings contribute to more than 60 percent of a traditional for-profit college’s revenues, the Marketwire release reported. The number of students enrolled in online education programs offered by a Memphis institution jumped by nearly 50 percent in one year, according to an area newspaper known as the Commercial Appeal. Because online college registration areas fill up quickly, keeping up with the demand has been a challenge, one college representative reportedly told the San Diego Business Journal.
For-profit higher education institutions were considered the fastest growing online education segment when the “32 Trends” report was written. And the report anticipated that the number of degree-granting institutions will continue to rise into 2020, while the number of traditional campuses declines. An Information Age work force during this time is expected to require continued retraining and “retooling” as well accelerated online degree programs, the report forecasted.
Distance educators were looking at how wireless laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), videoconferencing, virtual reality, video streaming, gaming environments and other technologies enhance distance learning when “32 Trends” was written. Looking ahead, the report forecasted that college accreditation and program approval is going to change, becoming more outcome-based and, by 2025, without one national accreditation system. Governments, testing companies and others, the report noted, would put testing programs into place, and large corporations would develop their own approval systems. Distance educators, to accommodate the accountability emphasis, “32 Trends” suggested, should plan ahead to maintain accreditation and meet consumer demands. The focus of online education is going to evolve to focus on the student as consumer as well as on flexibility and global reach, according to the report.
Aiding those who are pursuing non-campus based education are the many college grants and scholarships available. Just as with traditional higher education, these free scholarships and grants are used for classes in the pursuit of degrees. Finding which grants online might apply in your situation is time well spent determining a way to reach your degree goals. If you wish for find additional information about pell grants, check out the internet.
College Assistance For Minorities A Growing Endeavor With Grants For College
The United States has made its share of strides regarding equal opportunity in the last 50 years, but there is still one area where blacks still are woefully under-represented. The latest statistics say African Americans make up approximately one eighth (12.7%) of the total population. On the other hand, Board of Education stats say, representatively, black attendance is barely half that percentage of the college population. This is even after factoring in such things as Pell grants and other college aids. The graduation rates are even lower, with African American student drop out rates much higher than the average for just about all the other races.
When no less than President Obama states the true strength of a nation is the education level of its population, then rectifying this education gap is vital. What these numbers indicate is a particular group of children are being left behind.
One of the biggest contributing factors for both low attendance and high drop out rates is financial. With the current economy, many promising students simply can’t afford to go to college, even if they get such basic federal grants such as the Pell and the ACG. To combat this, a number of organizations are providing much needed cash so black kids can go on to school. Here are just four of them:
The United Negro College Fund – The oldest and most prestigious of the bunch, they personally hand out scholarships of $2,500 a year to students who have a 2.5 grade average or better. They also administer grants and other aid from 30 or so other groups; from other charitable organizations to top pop stars. They highly advise going to their website and applying to all of them.
The Thurgood Marshall Fund – This charitable organization was founded in 1987, and dedicated after the late Supreme Court Justice. It has given out over $100 million in scholarships and grants to students who go to any one of 47 recognized historical black colleges. This contrasts with the UNCF, which is open to any accredited school, on campus or online.
The Ron H. Brown Scholar Program – Started after the untimely death of the former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, every year it gives out $10,000 a year to 40 new students who demonstrate what they describe as leadership capabilities. This money can be applied to any Title IV college of their choice, and the check is sent directly to the student, not the school.
Blacks At Microsoft Scholarship – Charitable organizations aren’t the only ones trying to help minorities get higher educations. Microsoft has two different programs on the matter. The Blacks program is a special scholarship set up that awards high school seniors $5,000 a year for the first four years of college. The other, open to all minorities, covers all tuition and fees for STEM majors who demonstrate academic excellence and need.
Now what’s important is this is only four programs out of literally hundreds, not to mention the traditional such as your graduate school scholarships. Another African American group, called Black Excel, has over 200 different groups on its website. So it’s highly advisable for any student wanting to go to college to hop on a search engine for student loans and grants. Apply for a student loans and then see what else is out there. You’ll be surprised at how much is waiting.
