Monday, August 20, 2012

Call for suggestions

When I was back at my parents' place, one of the things I had to do was go through any mail that had arrived for me in the past two years.

Among the letters were a number concerning a scholarship of about $1000 I have from the State of California. I received this scholarship in high school because I got high scores on the standardized tests.

There are three main conditions for using it: it has to be used for tuition or books but not room or board, the school has to have a Federal School Code (basically, the code you list for the FAFSA), and you have to use it before you turn 30 or you lose it.

I didn't use it when I went to college because my college had a policy of using any scholarships to reduce the amount of grant money you got from your school. Since I received around $12,000 in grant every year, I had to get more than $12,000 in scholarships before my family contribution would ever by reduced. Not getting any personal benefit from this arrangement, I didn't feel like filling out paperwork.

When I was looking into grad school in France, I was disappointed to find that only about 6 schools in France have a US Federal School Code (Sciences Po, HEC, and a handful of others). The University of Toulouse, where I ended up studying, doesn't have a Federal School Code so I couldn't use the money when I went to grad school.

But time is ticking and I have a year and a few months to use the money or I lose it.

A while ago I looked into registering for an online class at the community college closest to my parents, but the classes that interested me required one or two on campus classes/meetings and the ones that were 100% online were nothing I was interested in.

So, does anyone know of a good American school (or international school with a Federal School Code) that has a decent selection of online courses that cost around $1000? I would be happy to just use the scholarship for one course (not looking to stretch it over multiple classes).

I would be interested in a German language class, English literature, history, home economics/budgeting, writing, software skills...

1 comment:

Mil said...

Not sure if it has a code but I hear a lot about the University of Arizona and their online stuff. Worth a try.