Student aid fund helping students stay on track

When Cassie Johnson went back to school for her nursing degree at Great Bay Community College, she did so with a clear vision and a plan.   

“It just felt right,” said Cassie, who lives in Newmarket with her husband and three children. “I’ve always wanted to be in some kind of helping profession.”  

Still, there were many hurdles to overcome.  Last spring, with the finish line in sight, Cassie learned she’d have to come up with about $400 in testing and licensure fees to become a registered nurse. Scraping it together was going to be tricky.  

Then she learned about a new student support fund created by a partnership between the Foundation for New Hampshire Community Colleges and Granite Edvance. Established in February through a gift of $80,000 from Granite Edvance, the Student Emergency Aid Fund is designed to help students complete their degrees by assisting with non-academic needs such as food, housing, childcare, and transportation.   

Supporting the launch of the Student Emergency Aid Fund reflects Granite Edvance’s purpose: empowering students of all ages and backgrounds to discover and achieve their education and career goals, said President and CEO Christiana Thornton. 

“No matter how hard they work, no matter how carefully they plan, some students are going to face financial obstacles that threaten their ability to complete their schooling,” Thornton said. “It’s heartbreaking to think that something like a car repair bill could stand in the way of a student receiving their diploma and going on to accomplish great things in their community.” 

Administered locally at each of the seven community colleges in the state, the fund has already helped 53 students with a wide variety of needs.    

“I was so grateful for that couple hundred dollars,” said Cassie, who now works as a nurse at Exeter Hospital. “It really took some of the stress off me.”   

For Shylene Winship, who’s pursuing her accounting degree at River Valley Community College in Claremont, the fund ensured she could stay in school for another semester. Bouncing from place to place throughout her childhood, Shylene moved out of her parents’ home at age 16 and hasn’t had a place of her own since. She pays her school bills and other expenses by working multiple part-time jobs, cobbling together resources, and applying for aid wherever she can find it.   

“If it wasn’t for [assistance] like this, I would lose out on college,” said Shylene, who used the funds for various expenses including food, phone expenses, and transportation to her work-study job.  

For Marie Boisvert, the fund came at just the right time – as she was assigned a clinical rotation for her physical therapy assistant program at a facility in Keene, an hour-long commute from her home in Claremont. Prior to that, she’d been riding her bike to classes at River Valley Community College, where she’d been pursuing a mid-life career change.   

“I didn’t have gas money in my budget because I hadn’t been commuting,” said Marie, who completed her schooling last spring.   

Scenarios like Marie’s are very typical, said Kristin Butterfield-Ferrell, a student support counselor at Manchester Community College, where two students have been supported by the fund so far.   

“The fund has helped us to support students to minimize unexpected barriers that had the potential to keep them from continuing with their education,” she said. “In one instance, a student has lost her housing and was working seven days a week to afford temporary housing, and was falling behind on schoolwork; the emergency fund is allowing her to balance work a little more and pay rent so she can focus on finishing her final course of her certificate.”  

   

  Photo by Corey Garland.