Get paid to enroll in college? Yes, it's for real at some community colleges
WGBH
Elizabeth Smith, a stay-at-home mom of six in southern Vermont, recently re-enrolled in school when the Community College of Vermont made an offer she couldn't refuse: $3,500 a semester deposited in her bank account, no strings attached.
“I think I was in a little bit of disbelief,” Smith recalled recently.
The money doesn’t go too far after she accounts for textbooks, groceries and childcare — it's not enough to cover even the part-time childcare she needs for her own two-year-old — but it helps.
The Community College of Vermont and other two-year schools from Maine to Florida are now shelling out money, sometimes in tandem with employers, to enroll students in training programs that prepare them for office jobs, as auto mechanics and in childcare.