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The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending t

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

tschoesi 1y ago
Right below the title "fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds". Where's the dancing?
gcanyon 1y ago
Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.
- brainwad 1y ago
  Well, the problem is obvious in hindsight, and perhaps even in foresight. Giving out free money attracts these scammers, who crowd real students out of not only the aid money, but also the actual class. So the net effect is to make it harder to access community college, not easier. Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to avoid the scammers if they limited first time students to in-person classes.
- philipallstar 1y ago
  This is the first-order, emotional reaction, yes, but policy should be made based on its full effects, not just its sales pitch's popularity with first-order-emoting voters.
  - intended 1y ago
    The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.
    - InDubioProRubio 1y ago
      The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements tear down the nation.
      - lores 1y ago
        Europe as a whole manages to hand over money for nothing to would-be students in need without any anti-education backlash. An anti-education stance is the cause of protesting education subsidies, not their consequence.
        spwa4 1y ago
        Yeah right. Now go visit East Germany, no shortage of anti-education anti-intellectual attitudes.
      - mcphage 1y ago
        > The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements Anti-education movements may be a third order effect for this, but it's a first order effect for other groups who are deliberately pushing anti-education efforts.
      - gosub100 1y ago
        No one's "anti education", except universities bloated with administration and professors who publish false data for the gov bux.
      - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
        This. People didn't agree on immigration levels yet they thought people fleeing horror should have shelter from the horror and be given asylum. The Democrats seemed to let the asylum process be abused as a general immigration process and now the US is having a huge pullback/backlash on asylum seekers.
      - intended 1y ago
        As someone else pointed out, yeah - anti education movements are a third order effect of how succesful education is at not making people vote for religious causes and non scientific positions. The threat of its efficacy, is why, since 1960 onwards, a large chunk of the western world has been figuring out how to bend psychology, rhetoric, and media forces to undermine "Ivory tower" intellectuals. Yes, a succesful movement has been undermined because it posed a threat to people with the money to spend to fight their battles. This is old news.
  - FrustratedMonky 1y ago
    "Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous." This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)
    - philipallstar 1y ago
      You think virtue signalling is playing to the far right? Care to define... any of your terms?
      - dbspin 1y ago
        One can virtue signal on either political spectrum, obviously. Phatic, performative language and gestures to indicate allegiance and supplication are possible for any given philosophy. Bumper stickers are literally virtue signalling.
      - Octoth0rpe 1y ago
        The concept of virtue signaling does not imply a particular group that the signal is intended for, and absolutely can be for the far right.
        red-iron-pine 1y ago
        hell, the concept comes out of signaling Christian Virtue and taking steps to look holier than thou
      - 9283409232 1y ago
        The fact you think the "libs" are the only ones who can virtue signal says a lot about you. The far-right have an entire playbook of dog whistles just for virtue signaling.
      - FrustratedMonky 1y ago
        As others pointed out. "Virtue Signaling" is often a term of derision placed from the right onto the left. But is often done just as much on the other side. It's part of the 'right's vocabulary of labels for the left. I just like to point out all the times when the 'right' take part in "virtue signaling". Right wing , political or religious, often take part in "virtue signaling". Yet, seem unconscious of it, un-ware of their own biases, because to them they are not 'signaling' they are just speaking 'truth'. But of course, they are not. "God is real, hence I'm not just 'signaling' when I say it to my fellow believers".
- SecretDreams 1y ago
  I'm mixed. If we lived in a utopian world where money isn't real, I'd agree. Reality is California has major budget issues. Offering the classes for free is already enough in the current climate. Working while going to school is not uncommon or isolated to California. Full time work while going to school is excessive - but that is also a California COL issue that the state needs to actually tackle. But it gets worse the more they don't address their deficits. Debt begets debt and it always drives up COL.
  - bell-cot 1y ago
    > Full time work while going to school is excessive ... For a healthy, driven person, without other major responsibilities (or a time-sucking internet addiction)? No, it really is not excessive. And that's assuming that "going to school" is also full time. Taking just one or two classes per term is an old tradition at community colleges.
    - 9283409232 1y ago
      > Taking just one or two classes per term is an old tradition at community colleges. Not for people fresh out of high school. You are usually trying to graduate with a Bachelor's in 4 years so you do full-time at community college for 2 years to get your AA-T and then transfer to a university for your last 2 years. California in particular has a program that lets you transfer get a guaranteed transfer to any state university or participating private university once you get your AA-T.
    - archievillain 1y ago
      If you completely ignore the section of the population that needs aid, then yes, there's no need for aid. Might as well stop building wheelchair ramps, because for a healthy person with no locomotory issues the stairs are just fine.
    - SecretDreams 1y ago
      I mean, I worked 20ish hours a week while doing engineering and I did well relative to my peers, but I can still recognize it was a lot. Full time in that world for 4-5 years would have been miserable. Just because I can do something doesn't mean it's something I would want or would suggest for the rest of the population.
- ethagknight 1y ago
  You present hypothetical scenario of up against the reality they getting paid to “attend” online class is a total farce, diluting the value of a diploma or degree from that community college system well also stealing away resources.
  - 9283409232 1y ago
    This is your opinion and it is not a hypothetical scenario. Many people including myself received grant aid to attend classes both in person and virtual. If it wasn't for that flexibility I likely wouldn't have be able to go.
    - ethagknight 1y ago
      I’m glad it worked for you, however this is not an opinion, it’s a worldview, and it is unethical and unscrupulous to use government funding to pay people to remotely attend a community college course. This is several steps beyond the intent of a community college, which is simply to provide free education for working people in the community.
      - 9283409232 1y ago
        It is an opinion and one I disagree with.
        ethagknight 1y ago
        And your position is a demand for someone else to pay you to attend class?
        9283409232 1y ago
        Yes if my taxes can be used to "unethically" and "unscrupulously" build roads I didn't ask for then I'm fine with taxes being used to pay for education.
- stogot 1y ago
  Not really. I worked various jobs in community college to support myself. Community college is designed around that fact with early morning and late night classes, but these are ONLINE classes. You can’t say that they have to work at that time because there is no time slot
  - danaris 1y ago
    "Online" doesn't mean "on-demand." My wife got her Masters from Harvard recently through online classes, and every class had...I want to say about 4 hours a week of actual scheduled, synchronous class sessions over Zoom, in addition to the coursework required.
    - stogot 1y ago
      I’ve done years of online coursework and I’ve never had that nor heard of that at a community college. Harvard must be doing their own thing. I guess if you pay tens of thousands for a degree you’re stuck with onerous practices. Community college is explicitly to help local students who are generally working jobs, so these onerous scheduled sessions are not reasonable
- olalonde 1y ago
  It's not about whether money frees up time-that's obvious. That argument could be used to justify handing out money to literally anyone. The issue is this aid is easily gamed, as the article shows, and strong incentives to pursue education already exist, like better job prospects. Not to mention that it's hard to justify asking less-educated workers to subsidize the upward mobility of those who may soon out-earn them.
- palmotea 1y ago
  >> If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous. > Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying. I think the idea would be if someone's getting paid to go to school so they don't have to work, then they should go to in-person classes. Online classes probably shouldn't be an option. If there's profit available and no personal cost (in either time or money), scammers will exploit the program as described ("fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds").
stikit 1y ago
No such thing as free education. Just subsidized education. Costs would be pushed entirely to tax payers, many of whom have never attended college themselves. Demand, costs, taxes and state deficits would increase. The incentive for fraud would be pushed up one level to the administration.
- UncleMeat 1y ago
  Yeah thats why free K-12 education is bad! /s We all understand the context of words here. Believe it or not, many people think that the government providing things for its citizens via taxation is a good thing.
  - stikit 1y ago
    If you want to refute any of my points, please do so. Sarcasm isn’t helpful. Managing scarce resources like education is a hard problem. Giving it away for free isn’t a solution.
    - UncleMeat 1y ago
      I think it is a solution. What points? You just insist that this is bad and that's the end of it.
      - stikit 1y ago
        hm. let’s start with how free isn’t free. you can then move on to incentives for fraud.
        danaris 1y ago
        How about we start with knowing that it's not "free" as in "costs nothing to anybody", as UncleMeat has already acknowledged that it's being provided by the government through taxation, and actually address why you thin that it's bad, rather than just repeating "it's not free! it's not freeeeee!!!!" over and over again, as if we're idiots who don't understand how taxes and public funding work?
YeahThisIsMe 1y ago
Just as ridiculous as paying people for remote work. It's just not reasonable when they're not even traveling to the office.
astura 1y ago
On one hand, students need to pay for food and rent, so it makes sense. I used loans, grants, scholarships, and financial aid to pay for these expenses myself when I was in school. On the other hand, maybe the barrier to entry is just waaayyy too low for online community college classes for this to make any sense. Students should have some skin in the game. Maybe students should be required to take a couple in person classes before financial aid can be used for online classes? I don't think the article was dancing around it though.
MisterTea 1y ago
This is the hard part of society. We want nice things but propose anything that can be gamed/scammed for free money and it's instantly shot-down before it even gets off the ground. That, or if by a miracle it launches, is constantly attacked and smeared by politicians using it to get votes from selfish assholes who dont want to share (I learned about sharing in preschool and kindergarten). Until you solve the primitive animalistic problems of selfishness, greed, and energy conserving laziness, were not going to have nice things. Someone asshole is going to be mad they have to share. Some asshole is going to lie and scam to get as much free shit as they can. Solving this is a very hard problem.
- arp242 1y ago
  This type of fraud is not entirely a new thing, e.g. from 2014: https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/pell-grant-fraud-awareness-white-collar-crime-challenges https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/pell-grant-fr... But the numbers mentioned there seem tiny for a federal programme like the Pell Grant. A lot of times it's a matter of scale: a bit of fraud isn't ideal, but entirely manageable, so whatever. Since then the scale expanded greatly. This is often a problem when you move things online: you're instantly connected with everyone on the world, which also means you're instantly connected with every asshole in the world. And with AI a single asshole can now pretend to be 200 assholes. The solution is to do less things online and more in person. There are some advantages for some people in doing things online, but it also negatively affects everyone, and in general it just doesn't seem worth it to do everything online. It's not binary: you can do many things online while still requiring some bits in-person (e.g. registration, exams, occasional events).
  - MisterTea 1y ago
    > which also means you're instantly connected with every asshole in the world. And with AI a single asshole can now pretend to be 200 assholes. Technology always seems to be the solution until the tables are turned. > The solution is to do less things online and more in person. And then we go right back to these programs being attacked for being inaccessible by e.g. poor people and the disabled. Obviously the solution is to hire people to go out and bring these services to those who need it but once you see how much effort is required to do that it rapidly requires a lot of funding and looks inefficient. A cultural shift is required to fix all this and I am not sure how that will happen. Even given that the major religion in the west is Christianity which preaches that being selfish is not cool has been appropriated by selfish assholes who vote selfishly. I dunno what to say anymore. I am 100% for these programs which will be massively beneficial for humanity and all these fucks can think of is "muh tax munney."
foxyv 1y ago
It is important to not deny people what they need in order to prevent fraudsters from profiting. This fraud is roughly 0.3% of total student aide in California.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
> apparently paying students to attend online community college No, they provide student aid that covers some (it's not much) of low income students' living expenses so that they can actually study and get through college, instead of working fulltime and it taking 2-3 times as long. It's the same type of financial aid scholarships 4-year universities give out too, and in most/all States.

tschoesi 1y ago

Right below the title "fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds". Where's the dancing?

gcanyon 1y ago

Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.

brainwad 1y ago
Well, the problem is obvious in hindsight, and perhaps even in foresight. Giving out free money attracts these scammers, who crowd real students out of not only the aid money, but also the actual class. So the net effect is to make it harder to access community college, not easier. Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to avoid the scammers if they limited first time students to in-person classes.
philipallstar 1y ago
This is the first-order, emotional reaction, yes, but policy should be made based on its full effects, not just its sales pitch's popularity with first-order-emoting voters.
- intended 1y ago
  The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.
  - InDubioProRubio 1y ago
    The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements tear down the nation.
    - lores 1y ago
      Europe as a whole manages to hand over money for nothing to would-be students in need without any anti-education backlash. An anti-education stance is the cause of protesting education subsidies, not their consequence.
      - spwa4 1y ago
        Yeah right. Now go visit East Germany, no shortage of anti-education anti-intellectual attitudes.
    - mcphage 1y ago
      > The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements Anti-education movements may be a third order effect for this, but it's a first order effect for other groups who are deliberately pushing anti-education efforts.
    - gosub100 1y ago
      No one's "anti education", except universities bloated with administration and professors who publish false data for the gov bux.
    - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      This. People didn't agree on immigration levels yet they thought people fleeing horror should have shelter from the horror and be given asylum. The Democrats seemed to let the asylum process be abused as a general immigration process and now the US is having a huge pullback/backlash on asylum seekers.
    - intended 1y ago
      As someone else pointed out, yeah - anti education movements are a third order effect of how succesful education is at not making people vote for religious causes and non scientific positions. The threat of its efficacy, is why, since 1960 onwards, a large chunk of the western world has been figuring out how to bend psychology, rhetoric, and media forces to undermine "Ivory tower" intellectuals. Yes, a succesful movement has been undermined because it posed a threat to people with the money to spend to fight their battles. This is old news.
- FrustratedMonky 1y ago
  "Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous." This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)
  - philipallstar 1y ago
    You think virtue signalling is playing to the far right? Care to define... any of your terms?
    - dbspin 1y ago
      One can virtue signal on either political spectrum, obviously. Phatic, performative language and gestures to indicate allegiance and supplication are possible for any given philosophy. Bumper stickers are literally virtue signalling.
    - Octoth0rpe 1y ago
      The concept of virtue signaling does not imply a particular group that the signal is intended for, and absolutely can be for the far right.
      - red-iron-pine 1y ago
        hell, the concept comes out of signaling Christian Virtue and taking steps to look holier than thou
    - 9283409232 1y ago
      The fact you think the "libs" are the only ones who can virtue signal says a lot about you. The far-right have an entire playbook of dog whistles just for virtue signaling.
    - FrustratedMonky 1y ago
      As others pointed out. "Virtue Signaling" is often a term of derision placed from the right onto the left. But is often done just as much on the other side. It's part of the 'right's vocabulary of labels for the left. I just like to point out all the times when the 'right' take part in "virtue signaling". Right wing , political or religious, often take part in "virtue signaling". Yet, seem unconscious of it, un-ware of their own biases, because to them they are not 'signaling' they are just speaking 'truth'. But of course, they are not. "God is real, hence I'm not just 'signaling' when I say it to my fellow believers".
SecretDreams 1y ago
I'm mixed. If we lived in a utopian world where money isn't real, I'd agree. Reality is California has major budget issues. Offering the classes for free is already enough in the current climate. Working while going to school is not uncommon or isolated to California. Full time work while going to school is excessive - but that is also a California COL issue that the state needs to actually tackle. But it gets worse the more they don't address their deficits. Debt begets debt and it always drives up COL.
- bell-cot 1y ago
  > Full time work while going to school is excessive ... For a healthy, driven person, without other major responsibilities (or a time-sucking internet addiction)? No, it really is not excessive. And that's assuming that "going to school" is also full time. Taking just one or two classes per term is an old tradition at community colleges.
  - 9283409232 1y ago
    > Taking just one or two classes per term is an old tradition at community colleges. Not for people fresh out of high school. You are usually trying to graduate with a Bachelor's in 4 years so you do full-time at community college for 2 years to get your AA-T and then transfer to a university for your last 2 years. California in particular has a program that lets you transfer get a guaranteed transfer to any state university or participating private university once you get your AA-T.
  - archievillain 1y ago
    If you completely ignore the section of the population that needs aid, then yes, there's no need for aid. Might as well stop building wheelchair ramps, because for a healthy person with no locomotory issues the stairs are just fine.
  - SecretDreams 1y ago
    I mean, I worked 20ish hours a week while doing engineering and I did well relative to my peers, but I can still recognize it was a lot. Full time in that world for 4-5 years would have been miserable. Just because I can do something doesn't mean it's something I would want or would suggest for the rest of the population.
ethagknight 1y ago
You present hypothetical scenario of up against the reality they getting paid to “attend” online class is a total farce, diluting the value of a diploma or degree from that community college system well also stealing away resources.
- 9283409232 1y ago
  This is your opinion and it is not a hypothetical scenario. Many people including myself received grant aid to attend classes both in person and virtual. If it wasn't for that flexibility I likely wouldn't have be able to go.
  - ethagknight 1y ago
    I’m glad it worked for you, however this is not an opinion, it’s a worldview, and it is unethical and unscrupulous to use government funding to pay people to remotely attend a community college course. This is several steps beyond the intent of a community college, which is simply to provide free education for working people in the community.
    - 9283409232 1y ago
      It is an opinion and one I disagree with.
      - ethagknight 1y ago
        And your position is a demand for someone else to pay you to attend class?
        9283409232 1y ago
        Yes if my taxes can be used to "unethically" and "unscrupulously" build roads I didn't ask for then I'm fine with taxes being used to pay for education.
stogot 1y ago
Not really. I worked various jobs in community college to support myself. Community college is designed around that fact with early morning and late night classes, but these are ONLINE classes. You can’t say that they have to work at that time because there is no time slot
- danaris 1y ago
  "Online" doesn't mean "on-demand." My wife got her Masters from Harvard recently through online classes, and every class had...I want to say about 4 hours a week of actual scheduled, synchronous class sessions over Zoom, in addition to the coursework required.
  - stogot 1y ago
    I’ve done years of online coursework and I’ve never had that nor heard of that at a community college. Harvard must be doing their own thing. I guess if you pay tens of thousands for a degree you’re stuck with onerous practices. Community college is explicitly to help local students who are generally working jobs, so these onerous scheduled sessions are not reasonable
olalonde 1y ago
It's not about whether money frees up time-that's obvious. That argument could be used to justify handing out money to literally anyone. The issue is this aid is easily gamed, as the article shows, and strong incentives to pursue education already exist, like better job prospects. Not to mention that it's hard to justify asking less-educated workers to subsidize the upward mobility of those who may soon out-earn them.
palmotea 1y ago
>> If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous. > Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying. I think the idea would be if someone's getting paid to go to school so they don't have to work, then they should go to in-person classes. Online classes probably shouldn't be an option. If there's profit available and no personal cost (in either time or money), scammers will exploit the program as described ("fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds").

stikit 1y ago

No such thing as free education. Just subsidized education. Costs would be pushed entirely to tax payers, many of whom have never attended college themselves. Demand, costs, taxes and state deficits would increase. The incentive for fraud would be pushed up one level to the administration.

UncleMeat 1y ago
Yeah thats why free K-12 education is bad! /s We all understand the context of words here. Believe it or not, many people think that the government providing things for its citizens via taxation is a good thing.
- stikit 1y ago
  If you want to refute any of my points, please do so. Sarcasm isn’t helpful. Managing scarce resources like education is a hard problem. Giving it away for free isn’t a solution.
  - UncleMeat 1y ago
    I think it is a solution. What points? You just insist that this is bad and that's the end of it.
    - stikit 1y ago
      hm. let’s start with how free isn’t free. you can then move on to incentives for fraud.
      - danaris 1y ago
        How about we start with knowing that it's not "free" as in "costs nothing to anybody", as UncleMeat has already acknowledged that it's being provided by the government through taxation, and actually address why you thin that it's bad, rather than just repeating "it's not free! it's not freeeeee!!!!" over and over again, as if we're idiots who don't understand how taxes and public funding work?

YeahThisIsMe 1y ago

Just as ridiculous as paying people for remote work. It's just not reasonable when they're not even traveling to the office.

astura 1y ago

On one hand, students need to pay for food and rent, so it makes sense. I used loans, grants, scholarships, and financial aid to pay for these expenses myself when I was in school. On the other hand, maybe the barrier to entry is just waaayyy too low for online community college classes for this to make any sense. Students should have some skin in the game. Maybe students should be required to take a couple in person classes before financial aid can be used for online classes? I don't think the article was dancing around it though.

MisterTea 1y ago

This is the hard part of society. We want nice things but propose anything that can be gamed/scammed for free money and it's instantly shot-down before it even gets off the ground. That, or if by a miracle it launches, is constantly attacked and smeared by politicians using it to get votes from selfish assholes who dont want to share (I learned about sharing in preschool and kindergarten). Until you solve the primitive animalistic problems of selfishness, greed, and energy conserving laziness, were not going to have nice things. Someone asshole is going to be mad they have to share. Some asshole is going to lie and scam to get as much free shit as they can. Solving this is a very hard problem.

arp242 1y ago
This type of fraud is not entirely a new thing, e.g. from 2014: https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/pell-grant-fraud-awareness-white-collar-crime-challenges https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/pell-grant-fr... But the numbers mentioned there seem tiny for a federal programme like the Pell Grant. A lot of times it's a matter of scale: a bit of fraud isn't ideal, but entirely manageable, so whatever. Since then the scale expanded greatly. This is often a problem when you move things online: you're instantly connected with everyone on the world, which also means you're instantly connected with every asshole in the world. And with AI a single asshole can now pretend to be 200 assholes. The solution is to do less things online and more in person. There are some advantages for some people in doing things online, but it also negatively affects everyone, and in general it just doesn't seem worth it to do everything online. It's not binary: you can do many things online while still requiring some bits in-person (e.g. registration, exams, occasional events).
- MisterTea 1y ago
  > which also means you're instantly connected with every asshole in the world. And with AI a single asshole can now pretend to be 200 assholes. Technology always seems to be the solution until the tables are turned. > The solution is to do less things online and more in person. And then we go right back to these programs being attacked for being inaccessible by e.g. poor people and the disabled. Obviously the solution is to hire people to go out and bring these services to those who need it but once you see how much effort is required to do that it rapidly requires a lot of funding and looks inefficient. A cultural shift is required to fix all this and I am not sure how that will happen. Even given that the major religion in the west is Christianity which preaches that being selfish is not cool has been appropriated by selfish assholes who vote selfishly. I dunno what to say anymore. I am 100% for these programs which will be massively beneficial for humanity and all these fucks can think of is "muh tax munney."

foxyv 1y ago

It is important to not deny people what they need in order to prevent fraudsters from profiting. This fraud is roughly 0.3% of total student aide in California.

insane_dreamer 1y ago

> apparently paying students to attend online community college No, they provide student aid that covers some (it's not much) of low income students' living expenses so that they can actually study and get through college, instead of working fulltime and it taking 2-3 times as long. It's the same type of financial aid scholarships 4-year universities give out too, and in most/all States.