I need Eight Grand....

Well it's final, because of one professor I had at Syracuse University who decided to write a letter and insist that I had not withdrawn from my classes, SU will not release my transcript until I pay them 8,000 dollars, which is 7, 999 dollars more than I can afford to pay. My only hope she said was if UMB might let me use financial aid to cover the cost. Sounds like BS to me, they wouldn't give me financial aid but they want another school to.

The key to my future....

I do not see anyway that I will ever be able to support my children never mind pay off any of my numerous debts if I do not get an education that will allow me to find a career that will pay me more than 12 dollars per hour. However, I can't go back to school unless I pay off that money. A viscous, viscous circle....

I

I love these little babies of mine and I want desperately to buy them a home to live in some day. Hell, I would settle for being able to rent an apartment that wasn't  shared with a relative or "subsidized" by my father. After a recent incident with the agency that funds my daycare voucher I have decided I want nothing more than to be off the welfare rolls, so that I can stand on my own two feet and tell these people who want to treat me like white trash because I am an unmarried mother of two children with different non-involved fathers to (expletive, I've given up swearing as a New Year's Resolution) off!

To celebrate or not...

I received my grades for the Fall Semester and my GPA was a 4.0. I got five As in the five courses that I took.

I am overjoyed in many ways, and although I would never want to sound boastful I am very proud of this accomplishment. My second semester at Syracuse University I got a 4.0 as well, and this has made me realize that my mind is still what it once was and that I have not fried my brain as my mother has accused me of doing.(More on that in another post.)
If the UMB had accepted me as a degree student I would be sitting back congratulating myself looking forward to writing many blogs full of words of encouragement for other single moms in college, but instead I am anxious dreading the impending doom that the Spring Semester will bring.

Syracuse has yet to get back to me regarding the promised agreement they mentioned to the admissions counselor at UMB, one that might allow me to obtain my transcript and thus be admitted to UMB. I am ineligible for any type of financial aid as a non-degree student and don't know how I will ever afford to enroll in the Spring otherwise. If I am not in school my kids will lose their daycare slot, which will be quite devastating to all involved parties. Recently they were home with me over the holidays and it was so very difficult for all of us. They were bored out of their wits and I could not accomplish a blessed thing.
There is not much that I can do now but await this student debt management account manager named Ruth's phone call. I wish that I was celebrating instead!

A Dead End

I had my meeting with the admissions office who told me I'd better find a way to get Syracuse to agree that I withdrew from the semester or else I won't be attending college next semester. I won't be able to get any financial aid if I am not in a degree program which means I can't afford to go to college. My father says he will help me deal with them when he gets back from Florida this week, but its been a pretty frustrating time for me.
I have had trouble getting out of bed in the morning because I feel like this is all a big waste of time. Why do they make it so hard for people to change their lives? I feel like I would be better off sitting on my ass collecting welfare and living in a section 8 apartment than truly trying to be an asset to the world by bettering myself through education.
I feel like there should be someone out there who can help me figure out a way out of this mess, but I haven't found it yet. Not even after I had a meltdown in the admissions office last week. To make matters even worse the kids have been sick (I'll discuss that in another blog).
Like my Nana says all I can do at this point is pray!

Transcript held hostage by SU is preventing my admission to a degree program at UMB

Thursday I have a meeting with the admissions office to deal with a problem that has been slowly eating the lining of my stomach away all semester. I am finally dealing with a crisis that first reared its ugly head last July when my loan consolidation was approved and my loans were finally taken out of default. All holds were supposed to then be lifted so that I could have copies of my transcripts sent to UMB and they could decide whether they were going to admit me. I should have known that nothing in my life could ever be that simple.

Especially given that UMB is now the third university that I have attended. After graduating highschool in 1996, I attended two full years of college, four semesters that earned me 54 credits. My freshman year was at Syracuse University and sophomore year was at Boston College. I made several attempts to return to school between 1998 and 2000, but severe clinical depression forced me to withdraw four to six weeks into the semester.


I carried those failed attempts with me like a backpack full of bricks. Throughout the eight years I was out of school completely, I regularly had the same nightmare. In the dream I would beg, borrow and steal my way back into college and once I got there I would be unable to leave my bed or I would suddenly come into a class that was about to take a final exam on a subject I knew nothing about. I also would get progressively older, and be laughed at by students that just kept getting ridiculously younger. Usually I am a coward, but in pursuit of a better future for my children I walked through my fear and trauma and began a two year long process to straighten out financial circumstances so I could come back to school.


When I got the letter from the loan consolodation company, I immediately drove to BC and got my transcript for the 1997-98 school year. I felt like dancing on air! I couldn't believe this might actually happen for me. The bubble burst later that afternoon when I learned that SU had not lifted the block on my account. After a few phone calls I was told that in addition to a $100 library fine, Student Debt Management was looking for $8,000 for a tuition bill from the fall of 2000. That year my ex boyfriend moved us out to Syracuse, New York with the proceeds from an overpayment from one of his own student loans. He did it "to make things up to me" since he had been the one who had persuaded me to leave my dream journalism school that I had earned a 4.0 at in my second semester, so I could be back in Boston near him. Unfortunately he was still the same control freak he had always been and I had had enough of it.

Unable to afford school on my own, I withdrew from my courses. SU, however, claims that I never actually withdrew, since I received a grade of C+ in one of my courses. The grade was from my writing professor who not only knew and liked me but was very sympathetic toward my situation. I am sure she thought she was doing me a "favor". SU will hold my transcript until I pay the total balance. I never took out any loans to pay my tuition since I thought I withdrew. Therefore the tuition can't be consolidated with my loans.

When I brought this issue to UMass Boston, I received mixed messages. First I was told they couldn't do anything for me without a transcript from every college I'd ever attended. When I was told that, I thought the hold on my transcript was awaiting slow paperwork. I called back after I knew I couldn't resolve the hold situation and was told to come down that day and register as a non-degree student. I enrolled in five courses, full time, the same as I would have otherwise, except I wasn't eligible for financial aid or to meet with a real advisor. I exhausted my father's savings and received limited one time funds from a state agency to pay per credit for the fall semester.

The counselor who registered me in August told me to successfully complete 12 credits so I could be admitted without a transcript. She also said that without the SU transcript I would obviously lose those credits but that I could still get credits for the courses I took at BC.


It doesn't really matter to me at this point I will do anything to finish school. The courses I took my freshman year at SU were lame anyway and so long ago that I wouldn't really feel like I was repeating anything. The stomach aches didn't start until I spoke with a college loan counselor I had been working with who believes its against either academic policy or the law for students to be admitted without transcripts from every institution they have attended. He urged me to obtain written confirmation of my admission pending the 12 credits.


Along with the washing of my kitchen floor, I have delayed doing so until now. No matter what happens I am sure that I won't regret this semester even if it is my last. Although I really hope its not. I will be devastated if they don't admit me to a degree program.


I spent the weekend researching online and found some legal articles where former students have unsuccessfully sued the universities that held their transcripts. I learned that I have a decent chance to discharge the debt by declaring bankruptcy since its a tuition debt owed to the school and not an educational loan. Federal laws make it next to impossible to erase student loans either federal or private through bankruptcy.


The happiest news came from an article that appeared in The Boston Globe "Colleges Playing Tough on Debt" http://http//www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/11/19/colleges_playing_tough_on_debt/


The article quoted a single mother in basically the same situation as I am. BU was taking her to court to attach her wages in addition to holding her transcript. At the time of the article she was attending UMass Lowell and complaining that without her transcript she was being forced to take the same courses for which she had paid and taken at BU. Rather than commiserating, I felt relief when I heard her complaint. Just let me in, that's all I want!


I am sure that if I am admitted I will eventually be bitching too, but hopefully I will look back at this blog and remember why I should instead be grateful! I will be keeping my fingers crossed for Thursday's meeting, and prepared to dish out my very saddest single mother sob story if need be.


I wish this system was easier and better supported single mothers getting college degrees. My experience has been anything but simple. I would love to hear about your experiences in your comments.

What's for Dinner? Besides Pizza!

In the coming weeks I hope to post some quick, convenient recipes. Its so hard not to give in to the tempation to order a pizza or another even less nutritious option when you are exausted and still have four hours of homework to do after you get the kids into bed. I have more Happy Meal toys in my house than clean socks.

If you have a recipe you would like to share, please do. My son will not eat anything except pizza and chicken nuggets so its even more difficult for me to find the strength to make a meal that he will certainly refuse to eat. My daughter on the other hand, will eat anything so its getting easier. Mr.Stubborn however eats cereal on those nights. So if you have any suggestions for picky eaters then let me have those too!

Tabitha Learns how to Walk

At just shy of fourteen months and motivated by her brother stealing her spoon Tabitha took her first steps. And it didn't happen at daycare!

She sat up two months later than average and seems to do everything in her own time. I predicted that she would walk around November 7th. Since she is still just taking a few steps here and there, maybe thats when she will make it her primary method of getting around. I know she isn't delayed though because the things that interest her she does right away. She held her own bottle at four months old and said Mama at about ten months. Patrick didn't say mama regularly until he was about sixteen months, and he never learned to crawl as well as she can.

Happy Halloween

So I somehow managed to survive a very difficult week. I literally made my self sick trying to edit my Chaucer paper. Even after I went to the academic support center for help revising it. I stayed up all night Monday and rendered myself useless on Tuesday and never fully recovered for the rest of the week. Friday I had an exam on Latin word roots that I would have done much better on had I not spent so much time trying to write the Chaucer paper.

I don't think professors should give exams on Halloween day. It isn't fair to parents. I had a breakdown at BJs Whosesale Club on Thursday night after the cashier refused to look up my card number without my license.

She sent me to the service desk where I burst into tears and told him that my little girl wasn't going to have a Halloween costume because of my disorganization. Fortunately, the customer service manager took a pity on me and looked it up anyway. I really don't see what the big deal was since I had three other forms of photo identification.

Halloween was a success as far as I am concerned. Patrick was a happy camper and we went back to Charlestown where we got to see some old friends. We brought my aunt who lives in the neighborhood but had never seen how everyone really gets into things around there.

Patrick dressed up like one of the Incredibles from the Disney movie. This is one of the houses near the Bunkerhill Monument. The decorations were unbelievable.