R.ARTICLE 0.1 — Are you a young, working mother trying to find someone to help you pay for a postgraduate degree? Perhaps you have been passed over for promotions one time too many by newer colleagues who have a better degree. If that is the case, the only thing you can do now is get a Masters degree or an MBA, right?
But you have also probably already discovered that you are no longer eligible for the federal Pell grant, which only offers scholarships for the first Bachelors degree. Of course, if you have a husband who is working, he should be able to help you pay for your studies. But even then, you will probably still need to take out a student loan to make the cost of college more manageable.
Fortunately, there are government grants which fund low-interest student loans like the Stafford loan. You probably already took out this loan for your Bachelors degree, but did you know that you can also borrow money for a Masters degree? However, before you put yourself back in debt up to your eyebrows, let us look at a few other options so that you do not have to borrow so much money.
As a young mother with a job and a Bachelors degree, you are probably in your mid-20s to early-30s. You probably started working after college, and got married and had children somewhere along the way. As long as you did not quit your job and are still working today, you probably have enough seniority to be eligible for whatever higher education subsidies your employer offers. Not everyone has this kind of good luck, but it pays for you to check.
Even if you just started working for this company, do they have some kind of grant, scholarship or low-cost loan available for female employees who want to study a Masters/MBA degree? You may wonder why a business would be so kind. Sometimes, it is a penalty or settlement of some legal case. Sometimes there are powerful activist shareholders who insisted on it. Sometimes it is the company's culture or tradition (maybe the founders were strong Women's Lib supporters, for example). Even if these benefits are not stated in your employment contract, it does not hurt for you to ask around.
Apart from asking your employer for money (whether it is a scholarship or a low-cost loan), as a woman, you can potentially receive grants and scholarships from a few women's charities and women's professional organizations. One example of the former is the Selected Professions Fellowships. They offer scholarships to minority women who want to study Business Administration (MBA), Law and Medicine. They also offer scholarships to women (regardless of race) who want to study in male dominated fields like Architecture, Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics.
One example of a women's professional organization that sponsors Masters degrees is the Education Foundation For Women In Accounting. Of course, if you are not an accountant, you have no chance of getting anything out of them. But what is YOUR profession? Does your profession have a women-only organization, or a women-only branch or chapter? If yes, then it is likely that they offer some form of scholarship or financial assistance to members who want to go for an advanced degree.
It hurts when you work hard for your employer, and then they give the promotion to a newer colleague just because he or she has a Masters and you do not. You could walk away from this company and find another job. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is common no matter where you work. The best thing to do is to get your own Masters degree. Fortunately, if you are a woman, you have more options open to you than men. And as someone in your 20-s to 30-s, you are old enough to have proven yourself in your career so that you can ask for financial assistance from your employer or professional association. You are also young enough NOT to be seen as an over-the-hill HAS-BEEN.