Community Colleges: A Smart Move for Back-to-School Moms
When you're researching colleges to attend, don't forget about your local community college. You'll get quality professors and courses with a fraction of the tuition fees you'd pay to attend a four-year college. Many community colleges have reciprocity agreements with four-year colleges that make transferring credits a snap. Even if you already hold a degree from a four-year institution, community colleges are a great way to fufill prerequisite requirements if you've decided to change career paths. Another bonus for the adult learner is that community colleges tend to have more evening classes than four-year schools do, so you can keep working while gaining credits. The average age of students attending community colleges tends to be a bit older as well, so you will have a lot of company with other students attending classes while juggling the responsibilities of a family.
A great scholarship resource for qualifying students of two-year colleges is membership in Phi Theta Kappa . Phi Theta Kappa provides more than $36 million in transfer scholarships to four-year colleges. According to their website, www.ptk.org, the organization has the following eligibility requirements :
You must be enrolled in a regionally accredited institution offering an associate degree program;
You must have completed at least 12 hours of coursework that may be applied to an associate degree (part-time students may be eligible);
You must generally have a grade point average of 3.5;
You must receive an invitation to membership from the chapter at the college where presently enrolled;
You must adhere to the moral standards of the society.
If you are interested in learning more about community colleges, here is a link from the University of Texas listing U.S. community colleges:
