New mailout just came in from Student Finance Dept. It lists some allowable monthly costs that can be applied for on Student Loans. In summary:

• Living away costs are $429 for rent/mortgage/utilities and $512 for food/clothing/transportation/etc.
• Living at home costs are $432 for food/clothing/transportation/etc.

Special considerations may be given if the amounts you are applying for are more than this. You will have to give a copy of rent or mortgage agreement and copies of utility bills for the last three months.

If you work part-time during school the first $800 you make every month is exempt and will not affect your student loan.

Applications may be made in paper or online. Both are available in the late spring. Unfortunately you can apply online using a Macintosh computer. BOO! (Editorial comment: This just screams of laziness on the part of Alberta Education in not getting decent programmers for varioius web browsers other than Internet Explorer. If Google or Ebay or Amazon or . . . even Microsoft can get their sites to work on any computer than so can Alberta.)

To apply you will need your Alberta Student Number (ask at school). To find out how student loans work, complete the Counselling sesson on the EDULINX site. Or you can call 1-800-222-6485.

The Association of Credit Union Employees and Directors Scholarship program is offering four awards of $750 each. Candidates must have been a member of a Credit Union from January 1st, in the year prior to the application. They must have received (or will be receiving) a valid high school diploma. They are enrolled in a recognized post-secondary institution. Forms can be found from the counselor in order to apply.

Deadline is end of February.

The student awards office of the University of Alberta has extended the Academic Excellence Scholarship deadline to March 1, 2008. This is for students who are in grade 12, have an average of 80% or better, are planning to attend the UofA, and have not already applied.

For more information: www.registar.ualberta.ca/awards 

I had a meeting with a representative of CCS Midstream. The company handles waste disposal in the oil field sector making sure of safety and enviornmental regulations are followed. They are setting up a local scholarship (Vermilion Area) for students entering the environmental sciences for post - secondary study.

This is a $1500 award given to the student once they have completed the first trimester. Students are nominated by each school and a committee selects from those nominations. If you are interested, please talk to your counselor.

The University of Saskatchewan has updated me of several important notifications:

• Experience US! is on Oct. 11 and 12. Sessions fill up quickly and so students who want to tour and learn about the campus need to sign up soon. Check out explore.usask.ca/events/experience.
•  Greystone Scholars Society is for students now in grade 12, had an average of 95% or better in grade 11. They are eligible to be nominated . More information and nomination forms are found at explore.usask.ca/moneymatters/awards/greystone.
• Prairie Studies is now being offered in the College of Arts and Science
• The College of Commerce is now named Edwards School of Business
• Food and Applied Microbiological Sciences is now called Food and Bioproduct Sciences.

I received this email:

The Cohenights Arts Society sponsors two annual scholarships ($1113.50
and $556.50, respectively) for high school students to study at the Teen
Video Intensive I and/or Teen Video Intensive II at Red Deer College.
Scholarship details at www.leonardcohennights.org/index2.html (Click on
Leonard Cohen Video Scholarship) or contact Karen Slevinsky by e-mail at
slevinsky@shaw.ca

Deadline is June 15, 2007

A post-secondary bursary program is available for students aged 18 to 22 who have been in government care. More information about the program can be found at the website www.advancingfutures.gov.ab.ca.

I thought this was a nice item. I received in the mail today an Award and Scholarship Guide for Red Deer College. This booklet lists the money available to students of Red Deer College along with criteria. It would be nice if all post-secondary institutions had something like this. If you want to see it, it is located beside the Red Deer College calendar outside my office.

On November 9, 2006, the Minister of Advanced Education, the Honourable Denis Herard announced the expansion of the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship for Grade 12 students. This change makes the scholarship available to more students. It is effective April 1st, 2006.

The main change is that besides picking English 30-1 or 30-2 students have more courses to pick from. They can pick two from the sciences, math and social studies. They can then pick two other 5 credit courses at the 3000 level which includes CTS.

The document listing the courses can be found here. (pdf document)

I received the following emai. It features the Alberta’s government press release on new funding for advanced education and hopes to lower tuition rates in the province.

If you want to read more click here: Read the rest of this entry »