Posted on 05/20/2012 7:47:29 PM PDT by artichokegrower
A mother of four who was laid off in 2008, Danielle Torno had planned on turning her life around next year with the help of a Cal State East Bay business degree.
Instead, the 36-year-old San Jose resident will be searching for another solution because of a little-noticed congressional decision to reduce or eliminate Pell Grants for hundreds of thousands of the poorest college students.
The changes take effect July 1, and students like Torno will bear the brunt of the reforms, which are expected to save $11 billion over 10 years.
Among those who will lose Pell Grants in the summer are at least 65,000 new college students without high school diplomas and 63,000 who, like Torno, have spent more than six years in college. Changes in income requirements will reduce or eliminate grants for nearly 300,000 others.
(Excerpt) Read more at santacruzsentinel.com ...
If these were tied to merit as well as need I’d say it’s a shame. Doesn’t sound as if merit has anything to do with it though.
Generally speaking, though, this is how the left funds its Sandra Flukes.
“When was the requirement removed?”
Probably when it was determined that a diploma or a GED requirement was racist.
Look, if colleges dump kids who can’t graduate from high school AND kids who can’t finish college in 6 years - where will our teachers come from??
“You should be able to get a bachelor’s degree in six years, honestly,” said Torno, who received a letter last month from the U.S. Department of Education alerting her that she would lose the $5,550-a-year scholarships. “But there should be hardship exceptions. People have families.”
Torno also has borrowed the maximum allowable $46,000 in federal loans,
meaning her only remaining aid option could be private loans with higher interest rates. But even that is uncertain.
“My credit’s too bad from not having a job,” said Torno, who has been balancing child care and school by taking online courses. “I’m going to have to stop going to school.”
We need to cut the Pell grant even more.
Obama pumped it up for the stimulus.
You used to not be able to use Pell Grant during the summer term.
Now I agree nowadays students more often do summer courses because
of overcrowding or other reasons.
But restricting it to fall/spring made it so that you had to be serious
to get a degree at the end.
Pell Grant is “free money” if you don’t get a degree or even drop out of
the course!!
some people and colleges are just Pell Grant mills
Like those illegals claiming child tax care credit to $4B.
She’s already gone to college the equivalent of six full years and still hasn’t earned a degree.
If she wants to go for the rest of her life, fine. Loans are still available; it’s just the freeby grants that are being modestly cut.
It took me twenty years. Spent the first year and a half partying and flunking out. Got married, raised a couple of kids, and then went back. Probation because of the lousy grades those first three semesters and carried extra loads to get back on track. Total time spent at the two universities was about four years and six months. And paid my own way. And got a double major, math and economics. Just tooting my own horn here.
I went to University, flunked out, went to work, returned and graduated with a BS in Geology in 3-1/2 total years in school. In 1983 the oilfield went to hell and I returned to school and obtained a BS in Pharmacy in only 2-1/2 years of university. I managed to do this because of CLEP tests. I checked the books out of the Library and studied them and then would take the CLEP tests for credit. This eliminated 1 year of university studies. I also took extra chemistry courses as electives when studying geology. This also eliminated a year of pharmacy school.
My total government subsidies i.e. Pell grants, scholarships etc. came to the grand total of zero. I did owe the bank 8600 dollars and paid them. I worked when I was in university even though I was carrying full loads 18 plus hours of pharmacy courses. The last semester before clinical rotations I took 21 hours of pharmacy courses and still worked.
Relative to those poor darlings that are bemoaning their terrible fate of not getting their Pell Grants I would suggest they take a look at the Websters Unabridged Dictionary. In it they will find that the word sympathy is located somewhere between the words sh-- and syphllis.
If you can not hack it in school, get a job that your skill levels deem you are adequate to perform.
If she has 6 yrs of college she should be able to find work and finish whatever she is taking on her own. She got a hand UP from the taxpayers..the rest is up to her.
“knew of so many students who took their Pell Grants and paid for furniture, cars or other luxuries once they got that money”
Hell, I know people doing that NOW....
It’s like they KNOW they’ll never have to repay it, and it’s just ‘Fun Money’ from Uncle Sugar
It was 26 years from the time I took my first college class until the time I was awarded my bachelor’s degree. I did spend 24 of those years in the military, and I got married and we have 6 kids, so college wasn’t the only thing I was doing.
There were times during the process that I might have agreed with you.
When I went back to school after flunking out it was in a summer session. At the end of the summer I received two letters from the Dean of Pure and Applied Science.
Letter number one congratulated me on being on the deans lists.
Letter number two reminded me that I was still on probation from 5 years prior due to the fact that summer school was not a factor in removing academic probation. That one gave me a good laugh. I was serious about school then.
This woman was laid off in 2008. That’s almost 4 years ago. So, as a mother of four, she obviously has been getting welfare, medical assistance, and food stamps, along with the Pell Grant and whatever unemployment checks she received that were given to her, for however long. Thus, a lot of government/taxpayers’ money has already helped her along. She is studying for a degree in business...but, after six years of college she is still not able to get a degree? She must not be too bright, so how will she be an asset to any company if she hasn’t even been able to manage her own situation better? If this woman is typical, no wonder we are going broke!
Congratulations for your hard work!!
yeah, it said she was going to graduate with a business degree.
I never graduated from high school or had a GED and still went to college. I spent 4 years in the Marine Corps and was required to test in.
I did not graduate because I had the wrong class credits. I also had terrible grades because I worked nearly forty hours a week in high school. Had to help pay the bills at home as my step dad was 70% paralyzed and a diabetic.
It also didn’t help that I thought most of my teachers were idiots. Even then I was a staunch republican. I loved Reagan’s policies and my teachers didn’t.
I am trying to get into Grad School right now, and I found other applicants that do not have Bachelor’s. I also found that those who were born in this country are about 25% of the applicants ... the rest are foreign born. This is at a top 10 school.
GED - its not a HS diploma
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