I’m in my sophomore year of college and have the opportunity to work 1 year in AmeriCorps starting during the summer. Should I concentrate on finishing school first? Or should I go ahead and accept the AmeriCorps position sense the education award with help to pay off future loans?
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You can always go into AmeriCorps NCCC just so long as you’re 18-24, and you can do AmeriCorps Vista and AmeriCorps State and National at any age and you can also finish college at any age. So, if you aren’t applying to NCCC where there is an age limit, then really you can apply any time you like and, regardless of whenever you did AmeriCorps, you can still always use the education award to pay off future or past student loans.
Now, if you’ve already applied to AmeriCorps (I’m not sure which AmeriCorps program you applied to) and they’ve already accepted you, I’m not 1% sure but I believe if you decline an AmeriCorps offer you’ve already accepted that automatically counts as one attempt at obtaining the education award and the government allows you two full time terms of AmeriCorps were you can get the whole education award ($5,550) so if you don’t mind losing one attempt and you aren’t really interested in the program this year or the campus you were assigned to, I say you should finish what you started (college).
If you DO mind losing that one attempt and want to use both terms of AmeriCorps to double your education award (around $11,0) and you’ve already applied and you’ve been accepted, I say go.
I hope this makes sense ^_^;
Source(s): AmeriCorps NCCC alum planning on doubling education award by doing two terms.
What you do is really up to you. You could always apply for Americorps after you are finished with school, but then there would be no guarantee that you would be accepted again. It’s similar to any regular job where they accept the best candidates only. You mentioned that you can also use your education award for future loans, which is true. But you can also use it to pay off past loans. So if you have loans now, and complete school, then you can apply for an Americorps program (and if accepted) you can put the payments on hold by deferring the loan while serving in Americorps. Then after you complete the term, you can use you education award to repay the loan.
It really comes down to which is more important to you. You can always go back to school after your year with Americorps, and you can probably get accepted to an Americorps program after school. But it’s probably a slim chance you will be accepted to the same program after turning them down (not impossible, but slim.)
I also wanted to correct Courtney. She mentioned she thought that you would lose one of your chances at the education award if you turned them down. Actually that is not correct at this point. If you decline the offer, then it’s no harm (other then they may be more hesitant to offer again in the future.) But if you start your term, then fail to complete your term, she is correct. That will count against you towards one of your chances at the education award (you can get up to 2 education awards.) So yes, make sure you want to do it before you start the term.
Source(s): Americorps Alum
Nobody can tell what is right for you. Have you looked into the option of deferring AmeriCorps until you are finished with school? Do you have the finances to continue with school now?