Category Archives: Education

These posts offer advice on education and financial aid.

10.06.08
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Corps Finances: Personal Financial Management for the Service Corps Member

Earning a stipend doesn’t mean suffering financially

These rocky financial times call everyone’s attention to government spending, and cause those in public service to wonder how the nonprofit sector will survive the turmoil on Wall Street — which affects the ability of foundations and donors to contribute financially.

Scobay (CreativeCommons, Flickr)

Scobay (CreativeCommons, Flickr)

The mess we are in also calls us to pay more heed to our own financial circumstances.

What does that look like for a member or stipended volunteer in a service corps?

Depending on the program, and on a member’s spending needs, a service corps stipend can be challenging to live on.

For service corps members facing challenges, the term of service is a great time to get schooled in personal financial management. If you are working with clients who have low incomes, the lessons you learn can also benefit them.

Do no harm

While most financial advice will tell you how to save and invest wisely, Corps members may not have any extra money to save. The priority for you, then, is to do no harm:

1. Get Your credit report free annually, know your FICO score (which doesn’t come with your free annual credit report), and learn how to protect and increase your score.

2. Track your money—all your money. Save receipts or take notes for a week. It helps to see it in black and white. That way you can spend according to priority not habit, and find cheaper alternatives.

Thinkpanama, Creative Commons, Flickr

Thinkpanama, Creative Commons, Flickr

For example, you might spend a lot on buying coffee at coffee shops, where you could make coffee at home or the office. That change would allow you to choose organic produce if that’s important to you.

A big expense that can build up unexpectedly are ATM fees. If you withdraw money from another bank’s automated teller machine, not only that bank but your own bank can deduct fees from your account. Imagine losing $4 every time you withdraw $20. And you may not see the fees till you get your monthly statement.

As part of tracking your money, list withdrawals and deposits in an account ledger like the kind you get for free with your bank account. Overdrawing your account can cost a lot of money.

3. Make a budget. Allow yourself to spend a maximum amount on a certain category each week or pay period. Some people like to put cash in envelopes at the start of the week, and when the cash runs out, so does the spending.

One envelope may be for food, and could include groceries and eating out. Another could be for gas, a third for entertainment, etc. You don’t need a fancy worksheet, all you need is to list your living expenses (rent, groceries, childcare, credit card, utilities, transportation), their due dates and their monthly costs. Make adjustments where you see waste as mentioned in Tip #2.

4. Be responsible with credit cards. Avoid running up credit card debt, as well as carrying a credit card balance from month to month.

The Truth About, Creative Commons, Flickr

The Truth About, Creative Commons, Flickr

Paying just the minimum payment fee on your monthly statement or paying the fee late can incur costly fees, and damage your credit score.

Also be careful about the due date in your monthly credit card statement. Those companies switch the date around like a fickle fiance, and they win if you pay too late.

If you are serving in Peace Corps or another international service program and are taking credit card debt with you, you can do a few things to help yourself out: sell off your car, books, and other valuables to pay off as much as you can before you go. If you won’t have enough cash to pay off your credit card that way, you can instead use the money to pay the minimum fee (or a set amount above that fee) monthly through an automatic bill pay that you set up through your checking account at home. It’s a very expensive solution.

Choose a credit card wisely, and understand the true cost of using credit cards. Use this calculator to figure out how much you really owe. Check out Frontline’s The Secret History of the Credit Card for understanding the fine print of your credit card agreement and more.

5. Live simply. Here are some of the biggies: live with roommates; borrow books and movies from the library; ride a bike whenever possible — going car free saves a lot of money; cook at home and have friends over for pot-luck dinners; forgo internet access and cable television at home; shop at thrift stores and swap clothes with friends; cut down on expensive drinks  like beer; reuse, reduce, recycle.

Richard Masoner, Creative Commons, Flickr

Richard Masoner, Creative Commons, Flickr

6. If at all possible, save. Similarly, avoid spending your savings you came into the Corps with. Even $5 a week adds up.

7. Know your financial goals. In the next five years do you want to enroll in school, buy a house, buy a car, pay down student loans, start a family, retire?

You may not be able to put a lot of money towards these investments this year, but can educate yourself about the financial needs you will have. Knowing what lies ahead for you may motivate you to watch your pennies now. You can also take workshops on these topics as you see them offered in your community. Sometimes they come with free pizza!

Resources

The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) offers an array of resources to help people think about money strategically, begin with Smart With Money’s Taking the First Step. Also check out this resource on Life Events and Financial Decisions.

Partnering with Idealist.org, NEFE published Making a Difference: A Guide to Personal Profit in a Nonprofit World especially for young people looking at a career in the nonprofit sector.

Service corps members are often eligible for programs that benefit all people with low incomes (such as housing for people with low incomes, Food Assistance and individual development accounts).

Another resource to check out regularly is Michelle Singletary’s Color of Money column in the Washington Post and NPR podcast.

Finally, keep an eye on the blogs in the Money Life Network.

For prospective corps members

If you haven’t yet joined a corps, have confidence that hundreds of thousands of people have participated in service corps and made it financially.

That said, do take a hard look at the numbers and make sure you can afford to live on a stipend. Take into consideration student loans (qualified loans can be deferred or put into forbearance during the term), child care expenses, rent/mortgage payments, car payments, etc. Service Corps programs, local nonprofits and government agencies may be able to offer help with certain expenses, so be sure to ask. It’s not impossible to thrive on the stipend, but a term of service isn’t worth ruining your credit history or incurring deep debt.

Also note that not all Corps are the same in terms of stipends. Peace Corps Volunteers don’t get rich, but typically earn enough to cover all their expenses (including housing, utilities, food, even medical expenses are taken care of), and sock a bit away for extras. AmeriCorps*VISTAs on the other hand, who work to end poverty, earn 105 percent of whatever is poverty-level income in their area—which can be a struggle!—and aren’t allowed to take on side jobs. Teach For America Corps members earn the starting teacher’s salary for their school district, while AmeriCorps*NCCC members earn $400 a month but have all their basic needs taken care of for their ten-month term. The terms of every program are different, so be sure to ask.

Do you know of other personal finance tips, or resources, useful to service Corps members? Are you a service Corps member or Alum? What have you done to be successful financial through your term?

10.02.08
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AmeriCorps for Recent Public Interest Law Grads

Corps of recent law grads bring legal services to the poor

Equal Justice Works, an organization that fosters the public interest law career pipeline so the rest of us can sleep better at night, has recently sent off its newest AmeriCorps team to serve in 17 sites across the United States.

The Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Program acts to increase the availability of pro bono legal services in under-served communities. The program achieves its goal by engaging recent law school graduates, who connect the dots among legal aid workers, law schools, law students, and clients in need.

The AmeriCorps members also offer legal assistance to low-income clients, and thereby hone their skills practicing public interest law. They also help expand the public interest law emphasis in law school course content and offerings.

At $22K, the AmeriCorps stipend for the Equal Justice Works member is significantly higher than for most AmeriCorps programs. With the possibility of student loan deferments and the $4,725 Eli Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, participating in the program post-law school isn’t as costly as it seems at first glance. The program also connects participants with 500,000 other AmeriCorps Alums post-service.

Summer Corps

In addition to the year-long AmeriCorps program, Equal Justice Works organizes an AmeriCorps-funded Summer Corps for first- and second-year law students. The Summer Corps engages hundreds of short-term members in 300 hours of service. Members then receive a $1000 education award. Look for applications in the spring.

Equal Justice Works Fellows

Finally, check out the two-year Equal Justice Works Fellowship for law grads, which offers new lawyers support (financial and professional) to practice public interest law. According to the web site, “Recognizing that many obstacles prevent committed attorneys from practicing public interest law, including the dearth of entry-level jobs and daunting educational debts, the program provides financial and technical support to lawyers working on innovative and effective legal projects.”

Public interest law

To learn more about careers in public interest law, and to learn about law school, check out Equal Justice Work’s web site, and its E-Guide to Public Service at America’s Law Schools. Keep up with the latest news and trends in public interest law, law education, and EJW by subscribing to the Equal Justice Works blog.

09.29.08
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Applying to U.S. grad schools from abroad

Are you a U.S. citizen working or volunteering abroad? Know someone who is?

Check out the newest article on Idealist.org‘s Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center: Applying to a U.S. Grad School as a U.S. Citizen Living Abroad.

The article offers considerations for working with your local mail system, finding test prep materials and taking tests, and finding good alternatives to the campus visit.

Idealist.org grad fairs are not as useful if you can’t participate, however, you can and should check out the list of registered schools at some of the events (for example the 117 schools at this week’s San Francisco fair and or the 107 schools registered for the Los Angeles event).

Also note that Idealist is still looking for bloggers including current or former term-of-service participants (like Peace Corps and VSO volunteers), and people crossing borders to attend grad school.

09.20.08
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The Grad School Campus Visit

Top things to know when you are shopping for schools

I don’t travel to as many of our Idealist.org graduate admissions fairs as I used to, but when I do I love to hear from admissions staff who table at the events about their day-to-day activities back at school. Over time I have had quite a few conversations about the Campus Visit and wanted to share some nuggets of wisdom here.

Visiting the admissions office:

One recent discussion was with Emmett Griffin of Georgetown Public Policy Institute about prospective students’s visits to his office. These are his tips:

As with any professional encounter, it’s wise to make an appointment with an admissions officer, a week ahead of time if possible. Admissions staff are busy. You’ll make a much better first impression if you set up a time to meet, and they are expecting you.

Read before you go. Of course you want to ask a lot of questions. But before asking anything of a school’s faculty or staff, read the web site and/or any available print material. Those will likely answer a lot of your questions, and you’ll make a better first impression if you have done your homework (this is, er, school, after all). (Imagine if you had a job where you were constantly asked questions — wouldn’t you answer all the most common questions on your web site and in your brochures?)

What if you happen to be visiting a city for other reasons and decide to drop by campus for an unannounced visit? Still call ahead, even if it’s just an hour ahead — and read as much as you can, even if it’s skimming all you can get your hands on in the admissions office itself, before chatting with an admissions officer.

Visiting classes:

The tips below are from conversations with Idealist’s Graduate Admissions Advisory Board (of which Emmett Griffin is a member):

Consider visiting a class or two while you are on campus.  But do not show up to a class unannounced. Schools love for prospective students to sit in on a class or two and will have different policies about how to set up the class visit.

Contact your target school’s admissions office, or the department. Sometimes you can sign up for a class visit right on the web site, other times the admissions office will direct you to the registrar or individual professor.

Also, professors might want you to have read some course materials ahead of time and expect you to participate in class discussions. Find out about these expectations ahead of time, if possible.

Other activities while you are on campus:

• Talk with someone in the career center about internship and career transitions support (grad schools often have their own career office)
• Meet with a current student to ask what it’s like to be a student there (see this article about informational interviews)
• Participate in a campus tour; many schools offer these a few times per day. The admissions office can let you know the details

Before you go, write a list of questions and/or considerations you’d like to keep in mind on the day of your visit. It might also be a good idea to jot down your top priorities in a school so you can objectively evaluate your experience later on. For example, if you intend to use the athletic facilities, you’d want to make sure you get to see them and find out how much (if anything) it costs to use them. You might be looking for an academically rigorous environment, or a lot of support setting up excellent internships.

Reflection:

When you get home, reflect on your list of questions:

√ What did I learn?
√ How interested am I in exploring this academic program further?
√ What values, skills, and interests of mine fit – or don’t fit – with the degree, department, or student culture?
√ What are my next steps from here?

Thanks:

After you visit, send thank-you notes to the professors, students and staff you met with. You can have the thank-you notes stamped, addressed and ready to go (save for writing the note itself) when you arrive on campus. As your last stop on campus, take a few minutes over coffee or lunch to write the notes, and pop them in the nearest mail box. The important thing is to make  the note meaningful, and to state something specific you learned. If possible, enclose your business card in the envelope.

Read more about grad school choices, admissions, and financial aid.

Find an Idealist.org Graduate Degree Fair for the Public Good in a city near you. (We are only going to 18 cities this year — we are genuinely sorry if we miss yours.) We’re coming to Philadelphia Monday 9/22, then off to the West Coast!

Blog for us (deadline extended).

09.17.08
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Building strong ties to local college career centers

Your service corps program and your Corps members can benefit from a good relationship with local college and university career services offices.

This afternoon I have the honor of working with directors of Oregon’s AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps*VISTA programs around the topic of career transitions for Corps members. One message I want to drive home is that developing ties to local career centers can help both with recruitment of new Corps members, and also helping current members with their next steps. Here are some ideas:

Getting Started: Invite career center staff from local colleges and universities for a brown bag lunch in your office to share resources and compare complementary needs. Some schools are part of a consortium that hold regular meetings; you could ask about presenting at one of these meetings. Some career centers have a counselor who focuses on public service; when you make your first call, you might ask for that person.

Be a presence (not just a flyer) on campus when it’s time to recruit: Staff tables at the school’s career fair, and let the career counselors know that you are available to speak at panel and round table discussions. Ask if there is a way to post your general and recruitment information on the career center’s website or resource library, or to staff a general information table on campus. (Idealist.org also organizes nonprofit career fairs hosted by career centers on college campuses throughout the United States.)

Be a resource on national service: Work with the career counselors to put together a panel on national service opportunities for college students. Help find current or former AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, and NCCC members, Jesuit Volunteers, Jewish Coalition for Service program participants, Peace Corps Volunteers, Teach For America, Public Allies, or City Year Corps members (seek people from a variety of service programs) to speak on a panel discussion, to help clarify college students’ options and understanding of the differences among the programs. Students may not understand how to apply to a program, or may be confused about the de-centralized application process for some programs. Be ready to offer guidance at least for your program!

Educate counselors about the benefits of national service: Let career counselors know that for some graduating or even gap-year students, doing a year of national service is a really good way to serve your community in a more concentrated, intense way than you may be able to through traditional, episodic volunteering. It’s also proven to be a  launching point for a public service career. Students looking for a year of work experience before going to graduate school will benefit from serving – often with a high level of autonomy, challenge, and responsibility – for an organization that doesn’t expect a long-term commitment. If they can think of the term-of-service as a fifth and/or sixth college year – during which the students serve the community, learn tuition-free, and may not have to pay student loans – the investment makes more sense. Not to mention the networking and the educational benefits!

Exchange career transitions support: As you develop relationships with career centers in your area, you might:
•    Ask if Corps members can attend resume and other workshops at the career center.
•    Arrange for college students to shadow Corps members for a day; establish a list of members who would be open to informational interviews and share it with career office contacts; invite college students on community service projects.
•    Offer for you and your Corps members to play the “employers” for mock interviews with college students – it is a great exercise for your members to be on the hiring side of an interview process.

Find more career resources for national service members on Encorps‘s Beyond the Service Year and What’s Next, and on Idealist.org through the career center, career guides, and Term-of-Service page.

This blog post has been adapted from a section of the forthcoming Service Corps Companion to the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers, due out this coming spring from Idealist.org.