College Connections

An exploration into how your college education will be paid for. Have you looked into federal and state grants and scholarships that can help offset your college costs? Will you need to consider college loans? Do you have any savings? Will your parents, family or others potentially be helping you with your college expenses? Will you have income form a part or full-time job that could potentially help with your college costs? There are many options to finance your education, but you have to have a plan for this.

Have you thought about or conducted any research into which area college, out-of-the-area college or out-of-state colleges has the major that you are interested in? We can help you explore this further.

College Connections staff can help you understand the value of working with your college’s academic advisement staff to ensure that you choose classes that are going to fulfill your degree requirements. This will help you avoid wasting your time and money on irrelevant classes. Staff can also show you the required courses for your major and let you know about the ‘academic rigor’ that your major will require.

To chart your career’s pathway, you need to examine your career goals, the skills you have or will obtain, the knowledge you need to possess, the experience you need to acquire and factor in your personal characteristics. College Connections staff can engage you in this conversation so that you can understand what its going to take for you to accomplish in order to pursue your career.

If you definitely know what you want to study, great! However, if you’re undecided, you can take career interest inventory tests that can assess what factors should be included in a job you wish to perform in your career. Then, your career interests can be aligned with college majors that will be the best fit for you.

The New York State Career Zone website provides a great resource to help you explore the six major broad work environments that jobs in the workplace fall into. Visit the Career Zone website and click their “Assess Yourself” link. There, you can view the various jobs that fall into the six job clusters by clicking the “View Occupations” link. You will then be able to view occupational descriptions, tasks, and duties of each job, tools and technology utilized in each job, skills and knowledge needed to perform each job, the education and training each job requires, wages each job pays and the job outlook for each position. Viewing the education and training needed for these jobs can help you better decide what kind of college education and/or training you should pursue for the career you would like to obtain.

Many EOC students have attended high school in a foreign country, and they’d like to know if their diploma can help them in the college admissions process in the U.S. College Connections staff can examine your credentials and provide you with guidance on whether your credential can help you with college admission. For those who obtained their diploma overseas, staff can inform you if your diploma is the equivalent of what you need for college enrollment in the U.S. For individuals that have some overseas college experience, staff can inform you on how to get those educational experiences evaluated to determine if they can help you with U.S. college admission.

Today’s colleges and universities require that prospective students complete an online application to be considered for college admission. College Connections staff assist individuals complete their applications and get them submitted. Staff can also advise you about completing college essays.

Oftentimes, college admissions offices will request additional information from you to help them make their admissions decision (e.g. residency, citizenship status, household composition and income verification, etc). College Connections staff can help you complete and submit this information, when requested.

College Connections conducts workshops for EOC students on various topics that will help you be more successful in college. Topics include: time management, study skills, how to get good grades in college, how to write a college paper, etc) among others. College-interested individuals can register to participate in these sessions whenever they are scheduled.

Two-year community colleges generally require that you take a placement test to help them determine which math and language courses you should start with when you enroll in classes. Staff can also advise you how to prepare for placement testing beforehand.

Federal and NYS grant funds are available for students to apply for to help lower the cost of their college expenses. These grants do not have to be repaid. College Connections staff will assist you with completing your aid applications. Staff will also inform you of other sources of funding to help lower your college expenses (e.g. College Work Study, College-Provided Scholarships).

Another source of funding to help lower your college costs are external scholarships. College Connections staff will inform you how to research and identify other scholarship sources that can help you with your college cost provided you meet certain eligibility requirements.

College loans are another source of funding to help you lower your college expenses. The federal government makes loans available to students if their free grant aid doesn’t cover their college expenses. Loans have to be repaid. Staff can inform individuals how to apply for these loans. If you have previously defaulted on a federal student loan, staff can inform you of programs on how to become re-eligible to apply for federal financial if you have previously defaulted on a federal college loan.