Free Money from Government

Check out Federal Student Aid Web Site or FAFSA http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

I suggest you explore all federal funding and grant options at the Federal Student Aid website http://federalstudentaid.ed.gov/

You may also want to read the Handbook of the Pell Grant — this is an 86 page document that contains everything about the grant
http://ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/attachments/0203Vo3MasterFile.pdf

Or you can call the Federal Student Aid Information Center http://www.ed.gov/programs/fpg/gtepfpg.pdf at 1-800-433-3243 and ask them if there are any programs for women of your age

Aside from FAFSA http://www.fafsa.ed.gov and Pell Grant http://www.ed.gov/programs/fpg/index.html , you may want to explore private foundation grants

Also check out Fastweb http://www.fastweb.com

For private grants, you may want to check the Foundation Center's Foundation Grants for Individuals Online http://gtionline.fdncenter.org . It's a subscription based website ($9.95 per month) and their opening blurb says that the database is ideal for "students, artists, academic researchers, libraries and financial aid offices." You may be able to find grants from private foundations.

For the etc. in your question, note though that the government is NOT in the business of giving away free money for the sake of giving away money. There are no grants for paying bills, no grants for paying off credit cards, no grants for getting out of debt and no grants for simply fattening your wallet.

Grants are free, but it means OBLIGATION. You will be obligated to do as the grant sets out to do. Grants have objectives, and your purpose must fit the objective of the grant.

For one, you have to write the grant application and the grant application is not a simple document - you have to explain how your purpose for applying for the grant fits well with the objectives set out by the grant.

There is a stringent review process through a committee. You will compete with other applicants for the grant money, and this grant review committee will evaluate the merits of each proposal. Only those that they feel exemplifies the objective of the grant will be approved.

You can go to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) http://www.cfda.gov and Grants.gov http://www.grants.gov - these are two sites created by the federal government to provide transparency and information on grants. Browse through the listings and see if you can find any grant that would support your purposes.

Even if you buy books on "how to get grants" or list that supposedly has information on grants — all of them are mere rehash of what CFDA has, albeit packaged differently.
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