In addition to federal financial assistance in the form of grants, scholarships, loans, and work-study, most states provide a little help as well. Individual colleges also offer help if you meet certain standards. There are some private sources of aid—for example from foundations and businesses. The application process is complicated and time consuming, but often worthwhile in the end. If you need help filling out financial aid forms, contact the Educational Opportunity Center at www.uta.edu/EOC.

• Don’t sign anything before you have a chance to read all the fine print. Talk to a relative, friend, or colleague before you make your final decision. Then sleep on it. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth waiting a few days to sign up.
• Ask questions…a lot of questions. If the answers sound fishy, or too good to be true, it may well be a scam.
• Don’t take the word “guarantee” to mean that anything is guaranteed. This is a red flag that it’s probably a scam! No one can guarantee you that you will be admitted to a certain college or that you will receive financial aid. You need to apply for both admissions and financial aid—using separate forms—and then receive an official reply from the appropriate sources.
• You don’t need to pay anyone to submit a federal financial aid application. The form, called a FAFSA, is from the government, and is free. You can also get assistance filling out this form for free from the Educational Opportunity Center. Just fill out the application on this site.

Where can you go to find— in one place— Arne Duncan, Mark Zuckerberg, Marco Rubio, Stephen Hawking, and Snoop Dogg agreeing with each other? Not sure? Now add into the mix Dr. Oz, Richard Branson, and Michael Bloomberg. Give up?

The answer is the overflowing, impressive testimonial page on CODE.org, a new nonprofit created to promote the teaching of computer coding into America’s schools. Founded by Hadi Partovi, CODE.org shines a light on 21st century society’s need for computer scientists and programmers. According to stats on the CODE.org website, 90 percent of American schools currently don’t offer coding while, by 2020, there will be about a million more computer jobs than computer science students. Partovi aims to connect engineers with schools and to help educators bring computer programming to their classrooms.

The linchpin of the awareness campaign is a short video featuring Zuckerberg, Will.i.am, NBA All-Star Chris Bosh and a host of other tech leaders and trendsetters. The video, directed by Lesley Chilcott, a producer of An Inconvenient Truth, portrays learning to code as fun, not exceptionally difficult, and the gateway to a creative, fulfilling career. Released February 26, it has already accumulated over 9 million views.

Read more on www.ed.gov/blog/

Alvon Brown found inspiration in the mechanical processes of working with his hands in an HVAC career and technical education program, and is now eager to pursue engineering after graduating from The Edison Academy at Edison High School.

Brian and Alvon’s stories are just two of many that illustrate the impact of early career and technical education awareness. Many similar stories were told about how career and technical education is addressing the nation’s skills gap at a recent ED Policy Briefing to celebration National CTE Month at the U.S. Department of Education.

“The students were spectacular,” Assistant Secretary of Vocational and Adult Education Brenda Dann-Messier said of the panelists at the briefing. “They were poised, articulate, self-confident and spoke eloquently about their CTE experiences and how well prepared they are for college and to pursue the career of their choice.” Also joining Brown and Will on the panel were Natalie Tran, the Future Business Leaders of America chapter president at River Hill High School, and David Kelly, the national president of the Health Occupations Students Association (HOSA) and an undergraduate at New York University.

Read More on www.ed.gov/blog.

Joyce Parker of Citizens for a Better Greenville and Becky James-Hatter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri discussed the importance of nurturing children—“love them, believe in them and let them know you will support their dreams,” James-Hatter said.

As the father of a child with Down syndrome, Michael Graham talked of the challenges parents with children with disabilities face and the importance of parents, families, communities and students having a seat at the table when education decisions are made.

Read more on www.ed.gov/blog.

As education leaders from across the country gathered at the Grad Nation Summit in Washington, D.C., we were pleased to announce a new collaboration between our agencies: School Turnaround AmeriCorps.

This competitive, three-year grant program is designed to strengthen and accelerate interventions in our nation’s lowest-performing schools. The new initiative will engage hundreds of AmeriCorps members in turnaround schools across the country. AmeriCorps members will help students, teachers, and principals to transform struggling schools by providing opportunities for academic enrichment, extended learning time, and individual supports for students. These interventions will lead to increased academic achievement and improved high school graduation rates and college readiness among our most disadvantaged students.

We know that students are most successful when they have personal, attentive support.  We believe this initiative is an important step forward in the effort to provide our lowest-performing schools with the additional resources that they need to improve.

Read more at www.ed.gov/blog.