california wia

lvnhopeful · Sep 22, 2009

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) helped me last year when I was in nursing school. They didn't pay for everything, but any help was appreciated as I was not working.

The amount of financial aid you get depends on the number of recipients, or at least it did in my case.

I was living in California near Bakersfield.

I hope this helps some.

**NickiLaughs, ADN, BSN, RN** · Sep 24, 2009

I thought the WIA only qualified you if you were fired from your job? Or am I wrong? I don't think you can quit a job and qualify for government assistance.

lvnhopeful · Sep 24, 2009

I quit my job to go to nursing school. Some of the other recipients were working part time. The only qualification I remember is that my family income had to be less than a certain level. This was in the 2007/2008 school year, they may have changed it, but I don't think so.

The mission of the WIA is to get you training for a desirable job. If I remember correctly, they financed about $1300 of the $2800 costs of materials, books, uniforms, NCLEX exam and license.

Also, if memory serves, other counties got money and gave recipients different amounts. Maybe this has to do with each county getting a grant of a set amount.

Go to the EDD and find out about the program. You can probably do this online also.

Good luck to you :up:

Kaligirl02, ADN, BSN, MSN, LVN, RN, APRN, NP · Sep 24, 2009

Thanks everyone for the info. I called the Edd department and they

said as long as I meet requirements everything should be ok even if I were to

quit my job to pursue nursing.

benrock · Nov 11, 2009

I am so disillusioned with WIA after going through all the necessary steps (going to the orientation, getting a case worker, getting accepted into LVN school) my case worker finally called me to let me know my application was up, I was so excited thinking that meant I had got approved and just in time bc school starts Feb 2010, they had told me not to enroll or pay for school just get accepted and WIA would then pay for the school. Then when I go see her she tells me that this meeting is just to turn in the paperwork to WIA and a panel of 5 people reviews it and they decide if they will approve it and then she tells me that my application will probably not be reviewed until March 2010! I am on unemployment and to qualify for this program you have to be on unemp. when you are approved, it looks like by the time they get around to my app. I will not qualify! I can not afford to go to school full time and work as well, especially with a difficult course like this one where I will need to study a lot. My goals and dreams just went out the window.

verdago · Nov 23, 2009

I am looking into this as well for the feb 2010 program and It sounds like this could take some time to get going. Does WIA finance everything or is it just a portion? I dont want to have to wait a long time to start school waiting to be approved only to find out it was a waist of my time

benrock · Nov 24, 2009

First of all you have to find the program you are going to school for on the EDD website, the program and the school should be on their eligible training provider list. Go to EDD.com and under Jobs & Training you can find the Eligble Training Provider list. These schools give EDD a special rate and WIA pays a portion of that amount. For example; I am going for the LVN program the school I am going to usually charges 29K for this program but if you go thru EDD they charge only 18K and WIA will pay about half of that amount, the rest you have to get financial aid, grants or student loans to cover.

If you are planning to try to get WIA for early 2010 you need to start working on it now and even then it seems like there is no funds available right now. I dont see any other reason fro them taking so long to review my case. Good luck!

verdago · Nov 24, 2009

The school I am looking into is NCP in South San Francisco and they start in Feb 2010. They are on the list but the next WIA seminar is Dec 4th and I talked to the guy who gives it today and he told me if you are on Unemployment already you are automatically eligible, factor in the holidays and then a 2 month process time, this may move me in to the next class that starts in June. My unemployment would have been exhausted anyway unless they extended it way out. I may just pay the tuition just so I can get this all over with.

Nothing seems to be easy anymore

Thanks for your help

benrock · Nov 24, 2009

Ok so my time line seems pretty accurate then. Well I dont know what extension your on but they have just approved a 4rth extension for benefits, I think its an extra 14 weeks, so you might want to call EDD and have them give you an estimate of when your final check will be. My advice is go to the orientation anyway bc you never know what can happen with the approval process. I just found out today that I passed the entrance exam but I wasn't as excited as I should have been bc I know I am waiting for this approval and it seems like it might not go thru for me.

MargieL26 · Dec 2, 2009

You mentioned above that you were awaiting an extension, perhaps you did not read the fine print for qualifying for thw WIA in California, your UI claim has to be fairly new, under 16 weeks of insurance claim benefits issued. I applied for it today and I'm just at 10 weeks. I recieved the following email from EDD;

"To be eligible for extended training benefits, you must have "inquired" about CTB or applied for CTB training approval with EDD no later than the 16th week of UI benefits paid (A Guide to Benefits and Employment Services; page 25). If you have not done so already, contact EDD to have a note entered on the claim record file to express your interest in CTB."'

I was in a workshop today and a lot of people were upset that they were past this deadline, and the staff did say their was not much they could do since this was in their EDD UI benefit handbook.

benrock · Dec 2, 2009

Yes I did know that, I actually did request it within the time limit and also went to the workshop - it has literally taken alomst a year to to have me career worker call me and get the report sent to the WIA panel. The report was sent 11/10/09 - I still haven't heard anything