I’ve done some pretty hard core googling on the subject and I guess I either suck at it or people are mistaken about the availability of serious aid for people who want to go back to school late in life.
What little I can turn up is pretty pathetic, a couple thousand here or there.
I want to go to serious school, for serious money.
Any tips on where to start looking?
I guess a football scholarship is out of the question? 
Start with FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Complete this application regardless of how wealthy you are (or aren’t) and regardless of how old you are. This is a necessary first step, no matter where you go to school (in the United States).
Contact the Student Financial Aid office of the school you wish to attend. You are not the first over-50 student they have seen, nor will you be the last. They likely have many suggestions that are specific to your area, their school, your age, etc. Another source could be your present employer. Do they fund continuing education for their employees? You could also check any trade associations or unions in your present industry or in your future industry (if your education is taking you to a new field).
Good luck. Stay away from those keg parties!
When you fill out the FAFSA, you will be eligible for gov’t sponsored loans, just like anyone else.
Subsidized Stafford Loans, do not accrue any interest while you are still in school
Unsubsidized Stafford Loans, do.
GradPLUS is for graduate school.
There are some other types of Federal education loans as well, that I’m not very familiar with. Your state may have parallel, but independent loan programs.
I’d start with the school itself.
A lot of it is going to depend on your parent’s income also taking into account their assets and liabilities. If you have any siblings in college at the same time, that will be taken into account and will reduce the overall financial burden. You should take to your orientation to learn more about the financial aspects and their responsibilities should something go wrong.
There is a documentary that lots of people in your situation find helpful. I wasn’t in the Greek system but lots of women swear that a sorority can help you build contacts that can be quite useful later in life.
Damn right it will.
Are you talking about a graduate degree or a bachelor’s degree? What field?
Back when I was in school, parental income didn’t count when the student turned 25. I don’t believe that it has changed. It would be pretty silly to look at the income of the parents of a 50 year old.
Somehow I can’t picture stoid as a sorority girl.
They do not. I am 32 and filled out a FAFSA last year and it asked me nothing about my parents.
I am single and don’t make a boatload of money - mid-20’s - but that is classified as pretty high income for the purposes of aid. I qualified for some miniscule amount of actual aid, something less than $100, and I qualified for $4500 in loans that I didn’t have to pay until after school.
I would like to know the answer to this question, too. Due to financial crises, I couldn’t finish college years ago. I’d like to go back and make more money. However, I can’t pay for college because I don’t make enough, nor can I get enough aid to help me pay for college, because I make too much. College - even community colleges - are damn expensive these days. And I have to keep working full-time so I can’t matriculate and so I have to pay the higher, part-time fees, at the community college.
Colleges are set up for the well-off, I fear.
Well, I scrounged up my community college transcripts and found out I’m farther along the path to where I want to go than I thought, which was nice.
I was also slightly disappointed to find out that my GPA was not 4.0… it was 4.0 across the board for every single class every single year but one…I got a B in one of my journalism classes, dammit, and it knocked me down to 3.939! Damn!
I was hoping that waving my 4.0 under someone’s nose would help…
Mildly interesting and probably surprising stoidal factoid: my (mostly, sniff!) GPA in community college over 49 units, including philosophy and psychology, was following a junior high and high school career of almost complete failure. Seriously. I pretty much dropped out of school in 7th grade, except for English classes, which I always aced. But all my other classes are almost all fail, with a smattering of D’s and a few Cs.
And I tested gifted.
And I found out 4 years ago that I have ADD, which explained alot…
You are as eligible for most merit-based aid as any other student. With a diagnosed learning disability, you may be eligible for some aid for disabled students. Being a woman over 50 probably doesn’t qualify you for much aid specifically for that category, but most aid isn’t based on age or gender anyway. Look at merit based scholarships targeted for the categories you fit into and the career path you want to pursue, and definitely talk to the specific school you plan to attend.
Once you have some assets and income as an adult, need-based aid becomes less likely, although there may still be some loans available.
Something else just occurred to me. Some schools will give you credit for having taken certain classes if you’re an “older” student and have life experience in certain areas. They have some sort of special name for it which escapes me at the moment but someone else will come along who will know. For example if they have a requirement for basic html, you can clearly show that you don’t need that.
There are programs out there targeting ‘non-traditional’ (read: older than 24) students. One that comes to mind is the Frances Perkins Program at Mount Holyoke, which is unfortunately on the other side of the country from you, but you might want to look for similar programs at nearby schools.
Your state government may have a Department of Vocational Rehabilitation or something similar. Since you have ADD and the good grades to show your determination, you may be able to get scholarship money from that department. Some states will grant it for graduate work only if you are changing vocations.
I would also try contacting local women’s civic clubs to see if they offer any scholarships or can make suggestions.
Keep at it!