Students think outside the box to cover tuition costs

To compensate for the high cost of tuition looming over families’ heads, college students have found alternative ways to pay for their education. One extreme example is that of Metropolitan College graduate student Felipe Yahir Flores, who supplemented his Boston University tuition by joining the military.

“I didn’t want to be a burden on my family but I couldn’t pay for school – it’s so expensive,” Flores said. “So I decided to join the military because they offered tuition assistance and it’s one of the biggest incentives the military has, if you join for educational benefits.”

BU students received $187,552,745 of need-based financial aid and $26,100,264 of non-need-based financial aid from federal, state or institutional scholarships and grants last year, according to the 2010-11 Common Data Set.

When it comes to individual cases, however, Financial Assistance Director Julie Wickstrom said that it is difficult to report the number of students who have received scholarships that fully cover tuition costs.

“Even if more students are using education benefits tied to their military service in order to pay for college, there is no way to know if they enlisted for the sole purpose of receiving those benefits,” Wickstrom said in an email interview.

Some students said they have not only received scholarships and grants in their financial aid packages, but have also applied for extra scholarships within BU and private loans.

College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Lauren Ansong said that financial aid was a determining factor when choosing colleges. Ansong, however, became one of 18 recipients of the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship, which provides full-tuition awards for four years at BU.

Kara Romanetz, a College of Communications sophomore, received more than $20,000 in scholarships and grants this year. She covered the other half of her tuition with a loan from New Jersey.

“What sucks about loans is that I have to start paying them now,” Romanetz said. “I work at the dining hall to cover the monthly loan costs because my parents can’t afford to pay them.”

Since Flores’s parents couldn’t afford to fund his college education, he enlisted in the army a year after graduating high school.

Flores spent four years at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del., where he simultaneously took classes at Wesley College and worked as an active-duty aircraft mechanic.

“Once I started school I realized the importance of it because I started as an adult. Each class I sat down in, I had an open mind and an open heart,” he said.

While Flores admitted he enlisted in the Air Force strictly for the tuition benefits, Wickstrom said it’s hard to know if other veterans are similarly motivated. Students who receive a scholarship that covers their tuition do not qualify for education benefits from the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Flores said the military pays 100 percent of his tuition and provides a stipend for living expenses, though he does have to buy his own books. While this is not necessarily a typical situation, Flores said the rules can change depending on a veteran’s educational needs and potential.

“There are restrictions from the [Department of Veterans Affairs] about how these educational benefits can be applied to a student’s account,” Wickstrom said. “For example if a student has a tuition-based scholarship that already covers tuition, the student may not be eligible for the VA education benefit. The VA requires Boston University to report whether or not a student received tuition-based scholarships prior to determining the benefit amount for some of its education benefits.”

“If I hadn’t gotten a scholarship anywhere, I probably would have had to [go] to school in-state . . . which would be disappointing for me and my family,” Ansong said.

Ansong said that since her parents survive in the middle, BU said her parents should be able to afford $50,000 a year even though they cannot afford the cost.

“For me to get a full [tuition scholarship], ‘That’s where you’re going – there’s no point in us paying thousands of dollars every year if you have the opportunity to go where your tuition is paid for.’”

Flores, who also has an undergraduate degree in business management from BU, was initially encouraged by his counselor at the VA to attend graduate school elsewhere. Flores, however, said he felt that he would stay because BU made him feel “welcomed” and enabled him to grow more than any other school had.

Looking back, he said he does not regret having paid through school by joining the military.

“Being in the military helped me out in college. It’s not that I’m saying I do the best homework but I don’t cheat. And I take my time,” Flores said. “Overall it’s helped me.”