I hope I have posted this in a OK place, my name is Amy and I am a happily married stay at home mom of 3. An 8 yr old girl, a 7 yr old boy and a 9 month old boy, my 2 oldest are almost 15 months apart, so as you can see I have had my hands full for years. After the birth of our 3rd (well actually while I was pregnant), I came to realize that my dream of having a nursing degree had to happen, not only for myself but for my family as well. I have been looking for work lately and can't seem to find a job anywhere, I babysit to bring in gas money alone (gas price, grrrrrr), and whats worse is I am out here with NO degree in anything and eventually with the way the economy is today, there won't even be any McDonalds jobs available in the future, those will end up being extra income for people.
So I signed up for financial aid this past spring and got turned down. My husband works for the state, but.... we still live paycheck to paycheck, he is a corrections officer and only makes almost $15.00 and hour for a family of 5, now if I had a job that would be ok and I could see getting turned down for financial aid, but since we got an extra child tax credit it put us over limit, it was something small like $300 or $500 over limit, I would have to get out my paper to be for sure, but I absolutely can not pay for books by myself let alone pay for school.
I wish my parents would have encouraged me to go right after school, I come from a family who's mother or father did not graduate high school, so it was enough for them that I did, and I want better for my children than that, but I have been out since 1990 and in need of refresher courses, my grades weren't even that great back then so I am sure a scholarship etc would be out of the question, my grade point average was only a 1.777, ( I had a boyfriend all the way thru high school, I thought I knew better than my parents about studying, hmmmm, wish I would have listened to them, and NO he is not my husband, haven't seen him in years) but my parents didn't have the money to send me then either.. funny how things get more important as you grow up, So here I am, wanting to make something of my life, so eager to learn (now) and be a good role model for my children to go to college (plus save money for them to go), but I can't go, I have no money at all literally paycheck to paycheck, we are still paying off medical bills from when we had our son, slowly but surely, what am I to do? We recently had to file bankruptcy in Feb due to hubby being laid off a few years ago, we were playing catch up and never caught up ( he worked at a factory then) and we had to credit card everything (food and some utilities) because his unemployment check were small and then we couldn't even collect any public assistance for food or anything even though his unemployment checks still had tax's taken out to pay into the *system*, so see we have had bad luck all around.
I am not having a pitty party for myself, but I reallllly want to go to LPN school, and don't know how it is possible. I realize all schools are probably different , but I checked into it here and it is almost $8,300 for the core courses, and I am guessing you have to pay extra for the refresher courses and the seperate classes such as nursing assitant, med term etc, they are all prereqs here. About how much do you think you paid to get clear through school, I am talking till your first day of actual paid work in a hospital or wherever. Any suggestions? Anyone ever had a very hard time getting to go with money and all and still found a way?
