Mysteries of the Education Award Revealed!

This man knows a thing or two about the AmeriCorps education award.

AmeriCorps members in NW Washington, you are invited to attend a free training on using your education award, hosted by the Northwest Washington Reading Corps, starring Bradon Rogers, AmeriCorps Education Award Extraordinnaire.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! 
Friday, June 18th, 10:00 am* – 1:00 pm at the Burlington Public Library, 820 E. Washington Ave, Burlington, WA. 

We at Serve Northwest Wa are very lucky because we live in the same state as Brandon Rogers, who knows a thing or two about the AmeriCorps education award.

Brandon served with the National Service Fellowship program in 2001, with the task of helping former AmeriCorps members better understand the financial aid process when applying to college.  What he discovered, however, was that many AmeriCorps members were actually losing valuable education money and paying ridiculous taxes because of misunderstandings of how the education award should be used to pay for college tuition. 

Thankfully for all of us, Brandon changed his project focus to help clarify the rules about the education award with financial aid offices across the country.  His study also gave recommendations to the Department of Education and the National Service Trust on how to better communicate with each other so that former AmeriCorps members will be able to maximize their education awards. 

If you have recently filled out a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), then you have seen Brandon’s handiwork.  Worksheet C on the FAFSA asks you to report any AmeriCorps income earned in the past tax year, including your living stipend and payments made with your education award.  This amount of money automatically gets deducted from your income, which is the amount of money that determines how much aid you will get.  So if you were an AmeriCorps member serving from January 1st to December 31st last year, ALL of your income would be deducted, and your contribution would be $0, thus qualifying you for the maximum amount of financial aid.  Pretty cool, huh?

If it weren’t for Brandon’s findings and recommendations, many of us would continue to lose out on effectively paying for college.  He’s a real AmeriCorps hero.

If you’d like to learn more about how to get the most out of your education award like paying for study abroad programs or buying a computer, then come to his workshop this Friday! 

*Northwest Washington Reading Corps and ARRA AmeriCorps members will arrive at 9:00am for our regularly scheduled team meeting.