Time to Open the Wallet
The other night my daughter remembered to tell me that I could now apply for her scholarship. She had forgotten to tell me that the period opened on the seventh of August. It's a good thing the deadline is the thirtieth of October. I had thought it would begin this month. At any rate, I got down to the job on the computer.
The application has to be done on internet, so if you're poor enough not to have internet and really need the scholarship, you're in a bad spot. Another thing, be prepared to pay for your child's room and board until probably February. Because between the application at the beginning of the school year and final decision, you've got about five months that aren't covered. And if your child has to buy textbooks, you also have to shell out, unless you have any money left from the year before. Generally, there isn't. My daughter is lucky that in the Philosophy Department they don't use textbooks. But she still has to pay for the photocopies the professors distribute, and buy some reading books, though not any special edition (if she's lucky to find them in the remainders bin, they're good enough).
And, no, you don't get any email reminding you that you can now apply for the scholarship. You either have to go into the Ministry of Education's website, where you can dig through extraneous information to find what you're looking for, or a friend who's sharper can mention it to you, like a friend did to my daughter. Only, the grapevine stopped at her for almost a month. They tend to keep it secret so people don't realize they are eligible and the government thereby shells out less money. Another thing they do is stonewall you on the site. As soon as you open the page for the application, they have a long list of things you need to have to hand. And they better be on the desk in front of you, because if you don't introduce any data, after five minutes the page closes down and you have to begin again. For those who repeat application, the page keeps most of the data you introduced last year. That's where the page can shut you down. Because there are three pages and you keep scrolling, making sure everything is correct, and since you're not introducing data, oops, begin again! Log in again, make sure any changes you introduced before being shut out have been kept (not all are) and keep checking. Finally, when you decide it must be all okay, you hit "confirmar solicitud" with trepidation. More than anything because it says that if you confirm and then discover a mistake, you have to reapply from the beginning. So encouraging.
While the information they ask for is mainly where the student will live and study during the school year, the only details on family income is if the parents work. Simple, they can check with the Ministerio de Hacienda (Revenue) to check out our income. So, we don't have to list any income, itemized or otherwise, nor detail what kind of car we have, how much we expect to spend on clothes in the coming year, etc. One ministry checks with another, and if they decide our income is small enough, our daughter gets some money and her tuition for the year. The tuition is almost always awarded, the difference is generally what money the student gets for transport and room and board. There are few university dorms, so most students rent apartments and share them. Depending on the apartment, there can be up to six students sharing the rent and utilities. But, if the student doesn't spend happily, a parent can still end up paying around two hundred euros a month. Not much? Most families have incomes from a thousand to fifteen hundred euros a month. It's a good bite out of the family income. And if the family is also paying off a mortgage or a car, it's a lot. Not to mention if there are two children or more at university or technical schools.
So, for this year the application has been sent. Let's just hope there was no mistake in it.
The application has to be done on internet, so if you're poor enough not to have internet and really need the scholarship, you're in a bad spot. Another thing, be prepared to pay for your child's room and board until probably February. Because between the application at the beginning of the school year and final decision, you've got about five months that aren't covered. And if your child has to buy textbooks, you also have to shell out, unless you have any money left from the year before. Generally, there isn't. My daughter is lucky that in the Philosophy Department they don't use textbooks. But she still has to pay for the photocopies the professors distribute, and buy some reading books, though not any special edition (if she's lucky to find them in the remainders bin, they're good enough).
And, no, you don't get any email reminding you that you can now apply for the scholarship. You either have to go into the Ministry of Education's website, where you can dig through extraneous information to find what you're looking for, or a friend who's sharper can mention it to you, like a friend did to my daughter. Only, the grapevine stopped at her for almost a month. They tend to keep it secret so people don't realize they are eligible and the government thereby shells out less money. Another thing they do is stonewall you on the site. As soon as you open the page for the application, they have a long list of things you need to have to hand. And they better be on the desk in front of you, because if you don't introduce any data, after five minutes the page closes down and you have to begin again. For those who repeat application, the page keeps most of the data you introduced last year. That's where the page can shut you down. Because there are three pages and you keep scrolling, making sure everything is correct, and since you're not introducing data, oops, begin again! Log in again, make sure any changes you introduced before being shut out have been kept (not all are) and keep checking. Finally, when you decide it must be all okay, you hit "confirmar solicitud" with trepidation. More than anything because it says that if you confirm and then discover a mistake, you have to reapply from the beginning. So encouraging.
While the information they ask for is mainly where the student will live and study during the school year, the only details on family income is if the parents work. Simple, they can check with the Ministerio de Hacienda (Revenue) to check out our income. So, we don't have to list any income, itemized or otherwise, nor detail what kind of car we have, how much we expect to spend on clothes in the coming year, etc. One ministry checks with another, and if they decide our income is small enough, our daughter gets some money and her tuition for the year. The tuition is almost always awarded, the difference is generally what money the student gets for transport and room and board. There are few university dorms, so most students rent apartments and share them. Depending on the apartment, there can be up to six students sharing the rent and utilities. But, if the student doesn't spend happily, a parent can still end up paying around two hundred euros a month. Not much? Most families have incomes from a thousand to fifteen hundred euros a month. It's a good bite out of the family income. And if the family is also paying off a mortgage or a car, it's a lot. Not to mention if there are two children or more at university or technical schools.
So, for this year the application has been sent. Let's just hope there was no mistake in it.
And they wonder why families don't have the requisite 2.1 children to keep the population from declining. :-)
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