Oh Happy Day!

Good news bloggers, someone FINALLY wants to pay you. The folks over at college scholarship are hosting scholarship competition for BLOGGERS!

Everyone rush over and drop in your application. Now, the scholarship isn’t awarded until October but, hey, go ahead and get your entry in… then you’ll forget about it… until you get the $10,000 email!

So, are you married? Does your spouse want to get his or her degree as well? There might be a great opportunity available for you.

Many seminaries offer the spouse of full time students the opportunity to attend the seminary at no charge at all! Now, this is really an amazing offer. The catch is often that the spouse my “audit” classes for free. That just means he or she can sit in on the classes for free. However, there are a few seminaries that will actually offer your spouse to take classes FOR CREDIT! Now, THAT is amazing. Your spouse is a real student, with real coursework, receiving a real grade, that will result in a real degree. Can you imagine that, two degrees for the price of one!!!

Now, one challenge is that most of us can’t have both spouses attending seminary full time. So, how can you both get your degrees? Well, an admissions officer I spoke with recommended that one of you go full time halfway through the program, while the other goes part time. Then, when you hit the midway point of the program, switch. Your spouse goes full time, and you go part. The program takes longer, but again, 2 for 1 is worth it if you ask me.

So, as your looking at seminaries, be sure to ask the admissions officer what kind of opportunities there are for your spouse. You might be pleasantly surprised.

According to a report from the Association of Theological Schools, the average tuition for a full time seminary student (05-06 school year) was $11,039.

So, if that’s the average… then some of you are paying less and some more… I think that number is probably pretty close to the ballpark I’m going to be in. Maybe we should have a competition and whoever has the highest tuition bill we all send him or her $5 through pay-pal.

Maybe once the readership here increases we’ll start the competition.

I discovered this one while starting to work on the scholarship list last night and figured it might be worth its own post.

Apparently, UPS has a scholarship program for its employees (can you say $3000 a year). Not only that, but it is available to part-time employees. That’s right, work a part-time job for a big company that offers health benefits and get $3000 for your tuition. It seems like a sweet gig to me.

Anyone out there that works for UPS? Anyone tried this program? Let us know… we’re all interested (well, at least I am).

Under Development. If you know any, please drop a link in the comment section.

Updated November 7th

• GREAT resource for finding money at The Fund For Theological Education
• Acton Institute (3 Different scholarships)
• Bohnett Memorial Fund

Updated November 2nd (Today’s theme - Baptist Scholarships)

• The Mississippi Baptist Foundation
• The Baptist Foundation of Alabama
• Arkansas Baptist Foundation (6 listed)
  
• Baptist Communicators Association
• Northwest Baptist Foundation
• Here’s list of scholarships with phone numbers and email contacts

Updated October 29th

• Chattanooga Christian Foundation
• Funds for Theological Education
  
• UPS ($3000 to $4,000 tuition assistance for part time employees)
• Church Partnership Programs (Lots of seminaries will cover a matching portion of your tuition if your church will commit to pay a percentage as well ) You’ll have to check with your seminary to see if they offer a program like this.