<p>Does anyone know of scholarships available for children who are adopted? I’m helping a friend with her search and am only finding infor for foster children. I though maybe there would be some specific for adopted children to offset the cost of college.</p>
<p>Thanks for any info!</p>
<p>The resources available depend in part on whether the child was adopted from foster care or through a private adoption. There is wonderful information here <a href=“http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/pdf/ItsMyLife_PostsecondaryEducation_FinancialAid.pdf[/url]”>http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/pdf/ItsMyLife_PostsecondaryEducation_FinancialAid.pdf</a> aimed at children who were adopted from foster care (and much of the information is very useful for ANYONE applying for financial aid!). </p>
<p>The Dave Thomas Foundation (the “Wendy’s” guy) has links to many adoption resources, but again, they target former foster children. You can do a web search for “The Dave Thomas Foundation.”</p>
<p>If the child was adopted through a private adoption, you might contact the agency that handled the adoption to see if they are aware of any resources. The common perception (right or wrong) is that families with the financial strength to undertake a private adoption are often in a better financial position than the families who adopt through the foster care system.</p>
<p>I don’t know why there would be scholarships just for adopted children. Adopted children are the same as bio children. </p>
<p>Foster children are different because they are independent at age 18.</p>
<p>^ There are also resources and scholarships aimed at children adopted from foster care who will not be independant at 18. Though as you say, in their families they are the same as biological children, many face additional challenges related to the time spent in foster care, the reasons they entered foster care and the possible lasting challeges created by those reasons, and the older age many of them were adopted (as compared to private adoptions).</p>
<p>Some of the benefits are there specifically to make adopting foster children financially possible for families of modest means (like mine, for example 
). The incredible challenges our youngest child faced before she joined our family at 3 years old and the resources we needed to help her overcome them would not have been within our reach on our income, so we are very appreciative that there are ongoing benefits available. (My most recent discovery: BRACES! I had no idea California would help out with that for former foster children, and it is a great relief because we would have had to postpone straightening that jumble in her mouth otherwise.)</p>
<p>In the last few years she has gone from “special ed” to mainstream and it now looks like nothing is going to stop her… except perhaps the overwhelming cost of college. The money we *were *spending on special therapy is now going (happily!) into a college account, and you can bet that I have my eye out for any scholarship or grant for which she may be eligible - college is still several years away, but we intend for her to have every opportunity possible.</p>
<p>So though former foster children who have been adopted will not be independant at 18 in terms of financial aid, I feel it is appropriate for them to get perhaps a tiny bit of extra consideration for scholarships, but then I am VERY biased .</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Oh, I know about foster kids and adoption…my sis is a director of a foster care agency and my brother adopted a foster child. Yes, there are costs that are still covered, even post-adoption, but I didn’t think college was one of them. I think my bro and his wife are expected to pay for that.</p>
<p>No, college is not “covered.” (I do not recall saying that it was.) But there are some scholarships that target former foster children, and some states have tuition waivers for former foster children. As I said above, we expect that we will pay for the bulk of college and are already saving for it, but we intend to seek out and take advantage of all the resources available.</p>
<p>How nice that foster kids and adoption are one of the things on which you are an expert.</p>
<p>Colleges tend to have a lot of smaller scholarships for various special things. I know of several at one college that go especially to “non-traditional” or otherwise “disadvantaged” students. (Some were blind, or native american, or simply returning to school with difficult circumstances - like an out of wedlock child for example.) While it will be delicate to indicate that your child has a non-traditional situation, possibly she can make it known in an essay or as some additional information regarding the obstacles she has overcome, etc.</p>
<p>There are probably endowments at some schools set up especially for adopted children who go there. :)</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids i would really like an explanation on how you deduce that adopted children are “the same as biological children” I am adopted and it is NOT the same in anyway shape or form. we go though all kinds of PTSD and mental issues just trying to survive in life, getting thrown away by our biological families, abandonment. that is like saying all people have the same color skin. its not adopted kids are the same as a minority. biological kids dont have to deal with not knowing where their from, wondering their entire life why their families gave them up, and many adopted kids are not from the same race, so there is an addition to issues. So please educate yourself before you make stupid statements such as that you sound dumb as hell.</p>
<p>mzbkhutson,</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure mom2ck meant that adopted kids and biological kids are the same with respect to scholarships. Obviously there are other issues that differentiate adopted children but those issues shouldn’t necessarily qualify them for a scholarship. </p>
<p>I think the OP was asking because there are scholarships for all kinds of “minorities” – descendants of Civil War veterans, Catholic school graduates, Polish-speaking chess players – you name it. There may well be a scholarship for adopted kids, too, who knows? But I don’t think mom2ck meant her comment in a bad way. I could be mistaken but it would probably have been better for you to ask her to explain what she meant rather than registering on CC just to insult her on a dead thread that’s over a year old.</p>
<p>By the way, I’m adopted, too, and I didn’t take offense at her post. Yours, on the other hand…well, :(.</p>
<p>MZB…I wasn’t talking about the life issues between bio and adopted children. I was talking about how anywone will view their FA needs. A child who is adopted is not assumed to have greater need. Parents of adopted kids are expected to support their kids in college just like bio parents are expected.</p>
<p>Frankly, since adoption is often a pricey endeavor, often adoptive parents have pretty good jobs…often more so than bio parents. </p>
<p>My goodness…knock that ridiculous chip off your shoulder and look for imaginary insults elsewhere.</p>
<p>As an adoptive parent I don’t think you realize how sensative a topic this can be. For the record we had to take out a 2nd morgage to adopt our children. Not all adoptive parents have lots of money. If they can give scholarships out for being left handed why not for being adopted.</p>
<p>Whether or not adopted children are “the same” as biological children is not relevant in this discussion in terms of how colleges look at the two groups. For financial aid purposes, they are the same. Adopted children are legally the children of the parents who adopted them, and that is how FAFSA treats the category as does every financial aid office I have known.</p>
<p>However, there are specialty scholarships for every issue under the sun. There are scholarships for left handers, for those born in certain place, for those with a certain name for those who survived cancer, whose parents were in a certain category, certain ethnic groups, certain religions and parishes, participation in certain activities, etc. To have a scholarship for any category, there just has to be somoene or some organization willing to fund and organize it. So there could well be scholarships for adopted children, some maybe general, some maybe more specific in sub categories. You have to use search engines and services like Fastweb to find them.</p>
<p>If they can give scholarships out for being left handed why not for being adopted.</p>
<p>I know that it’s become a “go to” saying that there are scholarships for “being left-handed” so why not for XXXXXX. Yet, where are all those left-handed scholarships? And how much are they for? Are there just a few tiny awards for one year only? if so, I wish that “saying” would just disappear.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone said that adoptive parents have “lots of money”. What I said is that many adoptive parents have better jobs than bio parents…that’s because there is no “income/finance inspection” for becoming a bio parent…as there is for adoptive parents.</p>
<p>Anyone can underwrite a scholarship with specific requirements like left handedness. That one states:
Note that that money does NOT come from the government. It’s possible someone has underwritten a scholarship for adopted children, but it would be for a specific school and probably for a very limited amount.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Oh I agree that anyone can underwrite a scholarship for whatever req’ts that they specify. My point was that people often use the “if there’s scholarships for left-handed people, then why not for __________?” As if all the lefties out there are getting significant scholarships for college…when in truth, those are rare (and in your example, college specific), and not for much money. (and it sounds like a one-time only award as well). </p>
<p>Yes, anyone can underwrite a scholarship for anything, but usually there is a motivation for these types of scholarships. Usually, there is a belief that the donor wants to see more of that type of student going to a specific school or to college in general (for some reason that will benefit the school or the dept major or something like that). Just giving money for some non-consequential attribute - having brown hair or being born in June - doesn’t usually motivate an entity or person to set up an endowment.</p>
<p>I just told my friends about this one. They adopted their daughter after being inthe foster care system. In Texas they will pay for all tuition and fees for a Texas public institution:</p>
<p>[College</a> For All Texans: Adopted Students Formerly in Foster or Other Residential Care](<a href=“http://www.collegeforalltexans.com/apps/financialaid/tofa2.cfm?ID=551]College”>College For All Texans: Tuition Exemptions Related to Individuals Currently or Formerly in Foster Care in Texas)</p>
<p>^^^
That is not uncommon…some other states offer that as well as an incentive to get people to adopt foster kids. If your adopted child was a foster kid, then look into what your state may offer. </p>
<p>For those who adopted their kids in the more standard fashion, those options aren’t probably available.</p>
<p>How could adopted children be the same as non adopted children? Anything or anyone with differences when referred so something else is CLEARLY not the same. This is an insult to all adopted children. Why? Because non adopted children will never know the pain and struggles as adopted children. But someone that had their real parents around would obviously know nothing about this. </p>
<p>This is an old thread.</p>
<p>And if you read thru it, the question was not about pain/struggles of adopted kids. My statement about them being “the same” was in regards to how schools will consider them for aid. For FA purposes, colleges will expect adopted parents to contribute just like bio-parents. </p>
<p>As for pain/struggles…there are also many bio-kids who have faced pain and struggles. Maybe because they were unwanted, or poor, or their parents were too immature to realize that they were not ready to become parents. So, those who had their “real parents” can certainly know a lot about pain and struggles. </p>
<p>Please use old thread for research only.</p>