Paying for College with Free Tuition Resources Part Two

College is affordable with free resources to start and stay in school.  Listen to the resources on this podcast.  More free tuition resources can be found through your college Financial Aid Office.  Take notes during this podcast writing down the program names that interest you.  Bring your list to your college over the phone or in an appointment in person with the Financial Aid Department.  Get more information about each one.  Also!  Think about if you will need assistance filling out  Financial Aid Applications or forms.  You can ask for a Financial Aid representative to write out your answers.  Access to college begins now. Inform college staff and instructors to meet your needs.  

Our publication will soon be released as a workbook for students, families, service members, veterans, case managers, doctors, counselors, teachers and advocates.   In the meantime listen to our podcasts to become a student advocate for college success! 

Transcript

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Good day, my listener. Glad to have you back with me. This is Crista Shaw with the Passport to Education podcast. Our podcast navigates college students with disabilities and their advocates to request 504 and ADA college accommodations. We're trying to cover key areas that cause barriers to starting and staying in college and provide solutions to you. Today we're focusing on paying for college and free tuition programs, and I honestly will tell you that the free tuition landscape is changing significantly with the current administration. Some programs are being cut, some programs are being downsized, so you will have to validate yourself each program that we discussed today. Please start learning what applies to you with your college financial aid office. That is the place to start. Contact financial aid and follow their recommendations. Most colleges have online help and in-person help as well. Also, if you have not done this, learn about the FAFSA. I'm going to spell that for you. It's F as in Frank, A as an Apple, F as in Frank, S as in SAM, A as in Apple, FAFSA. The free application for federal student aid. Go to the website FAFSA.gov. It's a great little website. It's really easy to understand. And or if you want help from them directly on the phone, you can call 800-433-3243. So continuing on, here is a quick recap from part one from the podcast about free tuition for college. And we're in part two today. There are an amazing number of ways to find funding for college. And this is a list that I have created of possible resources for you. You'll need to check out each resource, each resource for free tuition because our current administration in the US has initiated these changes, and I'm not sure of how the programs in the past have completely changed or if they're solidly funded now. So use our list of names of programs and research them. These and more may be available to pay your tuition. So here are my strong recommendations to you to work with your college first and get answers from them about applications that you need help with, about programs that are new or existing programs. Talk with them about scholarship programs. I really don't know of a college that does not have a scholarship program. And so that's going to be great information for you to get. And then there's another one, a scholarship program that I want you to know has an unusual name. It's located in the website Sally.com. So I'm just going to give that website to you. It's www.sally is spelled S as in Sam, A as in Apple, L as in like, L as in like, I as in ICE, E as inelectric.com. So www.sally with two L's S-A-L-L-I-E.com. And you're going to learn about a program called SCOLI. And SCOLLI is an amazing program that has over half of a million free scholarship programs for individuals. Sometimes those scholarships are focused on a specific industry and umor individual or culture. So it's a tremendous gift. Make sure that you check it out at Sally.com. Also, I want you to check out apprenticeships. I want you to check out the Office of Disability Employment Policy. So we use these long words and put them into acronyms. So that office would be ODEP, Office of Disability Employment Policy. They also have a phone number. I didn't not, I did not see a telecommunications relay phone numbers separately for them, but this is what I have. I have 1-866-487-2365. 866-487-2365. Why should you check this out? Learn about apprenticeships for youth and adults with disabilities. Just really great. All kinds of resources are available to us, and if we don't know about them, we would just never check it out. So I want to bring those to you today. So next on my list is colleges themselves that have free tuition programs. And let me share Newsweek's article from about a year ago in March 2025. It's a full list of colleges that offer free tuition based on family income. It's absolutely amazing. So let's get started. The first uh college is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And I'm reading now from the article for you. They remove tuition costs for undergraduate students from families earning less than $200,000 a year. The University of Pennsylvania said it would also allow students from families earning $200,000 or less to receive free tuition. Carnegie Mellon, $75,000 or less. Brandis enables students from families making $75,000 or less to avoid tuition costs. Stanford, families earning $150,000 or less do not have to pay tuition. All nine University of Texas schools have waived tuition for families earning $100,000 or less. All public state schools in New Mexico offer residents free tuition. If they live in the state, families making $55,000 or less at um get free tuition at the University of Wisconsin. Columbia University, their fee, their household income threshold is $150,000 for free tuition. Students at Cornell and Yale from families making $75,000 or less. Princeton, Arkansas, Duke University, New York University, State University of New York. And while some schools, um, this is from their article now. While some schools choose to serve low-income students by combining grants and scholarships and work study loans and that to help meet their financial needs, others have promised to keep these students and their families from taking on loans. So we really don't want you to have a loan and have to pay for school afterwards. We want to find those that money up front and see see we'll step up to the plate and work with you. So there's programs out there. As you know, all colleges have admissions processes. Two-year colleges in the U.S. have an open door policy. Four-year colleges have more requirements to be admitted. And it's important for you to contact any college about their requirements for admissions and registration and when to apply for their free tuition program. I'm going to be focusing on two-year community and technical college programs primarily right now in this podcast. This is a huge list, and I hope you find it encouraging. So get your pen and paper out and write down a few words. Make sure to bring your list to the college and ask them about these programs and see what funding is available. Or take some notes on your cell phone, will work just as well. Okay, first program uh for two-year schools is work first. This is for families with children receiving DSHS funding. These are college programs to help you acquire employment. So work first. The next is worker retraining. Worker retraining is important to two-year schools. Ask your college to speak with a worker retraining counselor. Okay. Bridge programs, these are programs that provide a bridge from basic skills training into technical skills training for high-wage, high-demand jobs. High School 21 is a great program for adults 21 years and older who have a new way to get a second chance for a high school diploma. So it's called high school 21. A prior learning assessment is another program that evaluates your skills, your knowledge, and anything that you have gained from your work experience that might count towards a related college class. And when that evaluation is done, they can tell you how many classes or a class, etc., that you would not have to take because you already have that knowledge from your work history or other areas that you've learned in your life. It's a great program, though the prior learning assessment, you can ask your college about that. Running Start is a program for high school students taking college classes towards their college degree or certificate, and their college classes also count towards their high school diploma. The division of vocational rehabilitation, the Department of Services for the Blind, the Department of Developmental Disabilities, I know I'm saying that very fast, but these three departments, the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, is a program that has support services for individuals with disabilities that are going forward to get employment. They have a banquet of services to address barriers that are present. The Department of Services Services for the Blind is the same type of program, but focuses on individuals with vision impairment, blindness, and other eye concerns that are barriers to employment. They have wonderful assistive technology and resources to help individuals in their job search and job acquisition. Department of Developmental Disabilities is similar in that way too, and it works with that specific population of individuals that may need more support and employment in many ways. Now I want to talk with you a little bit about apprenticeships. There are apprenticeships all over the United States, and every state in the United States, there are apprenticeship programs. And if you actually just put the word apprenticeship programs in your state, you can actually get resources and talk with someone about the different types of programs that are available. I think apprenticeships are awesome because you're learning on the job. When you're also learning on the job, you're getting paid. So it's like you're in school, you know, you're you're in school on the job and you work with coworkers and that to learn your trade. Usually apprenticeship training programs pay really well. And there are many of them, most of them that I know of are unionized. So there are benefits for individuals that are apprentices. The Employment Secure Department in each state has quite a few programs. There's an injured worker program in my state. You might find out if there's an injured worker program in your state. And also the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation does work with individuals who have injuries that can affect employment. So check out employment security as a resource if you have an injury or had an injury that may affect employment. So that could be something simple that you've experienced, but you have a residual mobility impairment, or you have a pain residual, or anything else that might affect walking, pain management, you know, etc. on the job. So there are resources for injured workers at employment security in our state. And I know that that can be offered in different locations, but employment security is a resource. Also, the unemployed workers program ask for assistance from employment security about the unemployment workers program. The WIOA or Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, W I O A. That has been a great program in the United States. And at through the Employment Security Office, you would be connected up with a community agency that has specific training programs that they're offering. And they would pay tuition, they might pay transportation, they might give you some food money, etc., while you're in their training program so that you can get employment right away. So that's um it may even be a college program that they're sponsoring. So the WIOA program is a possibility. So check it out with Employment Security, training benefits and commissioner-approved training for laid-off workers. Again, just ask Employment Security about training benefits and see if there is a program in your state for that. Programs for small business owners who have had to shut down their business. Veterans services programs at employment security and at your college. So many colleges have a veterans program to help coordinate tuition resources and guidance for veterans. So ask your financial aid office about that and see what they can tell you, how they direct you to that office. Honorably discharged veterans or their children may meet requirements for free tuition. Learn who qualifies directly from the Veterans Benefits Administration or the Veterans Benefits representative at Employment Security or at your college. Employment Security's apprenticeship programs exist as well. So learn more by talking with them about that. So again, apprenticeship programs at Employment Security. And I want you to also think about city, county, or state programs that pay tuition for employees. So what what that means is if you could get a job or an entry-level job with your city, with your county, with your state that you live in, those organizations typically pay you to go back to school and either develop skills on the track that you're in, whether you're working in accounting and or in an office or you're, you know, repairing vehicles or whatever it is that you're doing, they offer tuition reimbursement or free tuition, depending on their rules. So that's a very stable occupational strategy for you to get employed and get the training for a job that you want in the future. Usually the pay is really great in those city, county, or state programs. So it's worth checking out what's going on with them. And my best advice is that you get to a college career fair and meet with someone at a table that's representing your county, someone that's representing your city, someone that's representing your state, and say, I would like to go to school for this XYZ job. Um, I think I'll be very good at this in the future. Um, can you talk with me about the opportunities you have for me to work while I'm in school but get tuition reimbursement with you? And that's a common question that they would be asked. So please, please ask that question. Ask for what you need and get contact information. Go talk with someone, go a little deeper. It's okay to do that, it's not rude, it's very appropriate that you ask for what you need. Um, and there are private employers that pay tuition in one of two ways. Tuition reimbursement is where you pay up front for your classes, and then after you finish your classes, your employer reimburses you, and sometimes they require that you maintain a certain grade point average. That might be a B in your classes, or it might be a C in your classes. So that's tuition reimbursement where you pay up front, the employer reimburses you because you attended your classes, you completed them, and you have your grades that you can share with them. Now, free tuition is paid up front, so that might be where your employer pays the total cost of your tuition directly to the college. And this program requires that you're working for an employer and have been on the job for a set period of time, and that might be six months, nine months, a year. Each employer creates their own rules, but you can find out immediately by calling their human resources department and ask about their tuition benefits for attending college. And now I'm gonna start wrapping up because you're probably fast asleep if you're not already. Um I'm going to quiz you now about this very long list of resources to help pay for college. And my first question is what is your first step in finding financial help for college? Yes, you in the back row. Um so it's the answer is your financial aid office. Unquestionably get with them immediately, even if you're gonna start school in two months, four months, two weeks, a year ahead, you know, talk to them now. They will love you for coming in early because it does take time for them to process applications. It takes time, and um, you'll be helping them help you if you come and work with them immediately. All right, second question. When should you contact them? I think I just answered that. All right, I'm raising my hand. You should contact them now. Pretty simple answer. Contact them now. Are there apprenticeships in every state in the US? Yes. Are there scholarship programs through SCALLI at the Sally Mae website? Yes. And I have given you the website address. Is the Passport to Education a company that will help me find free tuition programs? No. You must research the best solution for you. Use the list I've created for you in this podcast and get out your cell phone to make some notes or pens, paper, make contact with these folks and make that make that work for you. You need to be doing that work, and it's not something that we have time for on our end. So thank you for being with me today. I've loved it that you tuned into the podcast today. Um, all my best in finding the program for you. Just know there is one out there for you and don't give up. Keep talking with employers, keep talking with your school, talk with your scholarship office, talk with the veterans representative program at the school or at employment security. Um, you will find a program that will fit for you and that can help you. So many thanks for being with me. Um, I'll be continuing to podcast, and I hope to have you in my listening audience again soon. So take care and bye for a while.