Loan parents and college

Offy

Does anyone here have any info as regards what sort of financial aid is available for loan parents who are in college?
i.e. grants, social welfare ect. I'm thinking of returning to college but would like to know before I quit my job if it is feasible.
Any advice from anyone who is/was a lone parent and has gone to college as such would be great.

Victor

I have no experience of this, but there are possibly some schemes out there. Talk to Social Welfare and the colleges you are looking at. If it is a part time / short duration course FÁS may help. If you are over-23, the grant application regime is more benign.

Most colleges will have *some* assistance scheme for lone / young parents (easier applications, specific housing provisions, creches).

If you are working now and paying tax, there is a slight tax advantage of making sure you use the traditional academic year (across 2 tax years). This way you get to use credits / lower tax rates more.

Nevyn

A good place to get info or at least pointed in the right direction would be to get in touch with USI. Union of students in ireland.
Thier numbers in the book or the offices on aston quay ( if you are in dublin ).

Either the Welfare officer or the Womens officer should be able to
help you out. The reason in including the Womens officer is that she is incharge of the childcare campagain.

http://www.usi.ie/

and good luck to you

Victor

Originally posted by Thaed
the offices on aston quay

That was only USIT - a separte company. It's now closed.

Union of Students in Ireland,
Ceann Aras na Mac Leinn,
Grattan St.,
Dublin 2-
Tel 00353 1 435 3400
Fax 00353 1 435 3450
enquiries@usi.ie
http://www.usi.ie/

sceptre

The two links bwlow may be of some use to you:
http://education.welfare.ie/home/index.xml

http://education.welfare.ie/publications/sw70.xml

The annoying thing about the Back to Education allowance, from your point of view, is that the conditions that need to be satisfied to get the allowance need to have been satisfied before you started the course.

In other words, if you dropped out to have your child and now you want to go back and resume your course, they won't give you any money (I know one girl who fell foul of this rule)

On the other hand, if you want to start a new course, you would be OK with meeting the conditions now, which presumably you would.

(I've a vague theory that if you applied to go into first year in the normal CAO way in the course which you were attending before and then applied for exam exemptions to move up to the level you were at before that this wouldn't be noticed but it may or may not be the case)

It's almost certainly worth calling into your local social welfare office - the peopple dealing with the back to education allowances are normally very helpful. Or, even better, call into the welfare officer in the college you were attending before if there is one.

Offy

Local social welfare office are of no help. I dropped out of college when I got custody of my children 16 months ago and only today found out that I am and was entitled to Loan parents allowance, Unemployment Benefit or Back to Education allowance, Millennium Grant, Hardship Grant and all Social Welfare benefits (Fuel Allowance, Medical Cards, etc.), can also claim for Childminding which is the main reason I'm quitting my job.
In total it adds up to nearly €400. Local social welfare office told me 16 months ago nothing. In fact they withheld all that information. Thanks for the advice people.

Nevyn

That is unfortunaly pretty common.
Some of the people working there are really helpfull and some seem to go out of thier way to make like more difficult.


Best of luck to you and ur kids.
And i'd keep copies of every form you have to fill in and keep copyies of all the letters they send you and full names of anyone you have to deal with via the phone. Makes it harder for them to screwup again

lulu

Im a lone parent who went back to college nearly 3 years ago, and i have to say it was scarey cause of the lack of info out there but the best thing you could do is get in touch with the lone parents section/social welfare in Sligo and tell them that you want to go on the Back to Education program. You get all your dole plus you can apply for the grant. As regards help from the college itself most of them have a students ass fund which will help with your childcare. All in all in adds up to appox €240 per week depending how many kids you have. Good Luck with college and enjoy!!

Offy

I'm up to nearly €500.00 (with benifits) now lulu, Ta. Makes me wonder why I would ever want to work again.

lulu

Thats great Offy, hope college is going well for you, the trouble with it is that you can get addicted to being a student cause in my opion its far easier than being a full time parent. I was suppose to finish after my cert but find myself studing for my diploma now and thinking about my degree next year. My poor mother will be demented again i finish college as she minds my kids!!

smiles

some colleges have special "link" things with different parts of the country, they provide extra aid, tuition, etc.

ring some of the colleges and ask!

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