The Crucial Federal Pell Grant Eligibility Requirements

The Crucial Federal Pell Grant Eligibility Requirements

Article: A Pell Grant allows you to have some or all of your college expenses paid for by the Federal government. The best thing about a Pell Grant is the fact that it is not a loan, so you never have to pay it back. Having free money to reduce or eliminate the need for student loan payments in the future is wonderful, so anybody who qualifies for this program should take advantage of it.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to know if you meet the requirements necessary to receive a Pell Grant. The fact of the matter is, it really isn’t possible to know if you are eligible for a Pell Grant unless you fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The FAFSA returns a number known as your Expected Family Contribution, which is used to determine your eligibility and how much money you can receive, if any. Still, there are some factors to think about that can contribute to whether or not you are likely to be eligible.

First off, if you are a dependent of a family with an annual income of more than fifty thousand dollars, you can expect not to qualify. Most of the people who do qualify come from families with an income of less than twenty thousand dollars each year. Several other factors can play into this, and to list them all would be exhaustive. However, you can expect that if you live independently of your parents or legal guardians that you are more likely to qualify. This is especially true if you care for children of your own. Essentially, the more difficult it would be for you to pay for college, the more likely it is that you qualify for a Pell Grant.

In addition to financial considerations, the Pell Grant is only offered to legal residents of the United States, and it can only be applied toward undergraduate degree programs. If you have already earned a degree in another field, you might not be eligible, depending on the field. You also cannot be in default on a federal student loan, and you must use the proceeds of your grant for education at a legitimate college or university. You will be required to meet specific academic benchmarks that will be set by your school in respect to your grades and the number of classes that you drop. Finally, if you have ever sold illegal drugs while receiving federal financial aid, you will most likely not qualify.

The author is a financial aid counelor at a prominent university, and writes about how to gain Pell Grant eligibility, and the various Pell Grant requirements.

NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?

Some 3-D printer food made from meal worms (TNO research)

Call it food for thought. Or perhaps thought for food: NASA has given a six-month grant to a company developing what could be the world’s first 3-D food printer. And the project’s developer, reports Quartz, an online digital news site, believes the invention could be used to end world hunger.

Quartz explains that the printer is the brainchild of mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor. Being developed by Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corp., it will use proteins, carbohydrates and sugars to create edible food products.

Contractor says one of his primary motivations is a belief that food will become exponentially more expensive in the near future. The average consumer, he told Quartz, will need a more economically viable option.

Some alternative food source options that may be used with the printer include algae, duckweed, grass, lupine seeds, beet leaves and even insects, according to TNO Research, which is working with Contractor on the project.

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” said Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

One of Contractor’s first prototypes will be a 3-D pizza printer, and he hopes to begin building it over the next couple of weeks. Contractor, reports Quartz, explained that it will print "a layer of dough, which is baked at the same time it’s printed, by a heated plate at the bottom of the printer. Then it lays down a tomato base, 'which is also stored in a powdered form, and then mixed with water and oil.'" Lastly comes the "protein layer."

Contractor also hopes that people will be able to share recipes via an open source coding system.

“One of the major advantages of a 3-D printer is that it provides personalized nutrition,” Contractor told Quartz. “If you’re male, female, someone is sick—they all have different dietary needs. If you can program your needs into a 3-D printer, it can print exactly the nutrients that person requires.”

NASA is certainly a believer: The six-month grant comes to $125,000. The agency specifically interested in using the 3-D printer to feed astronauts on long space voyages.

“Long distance space travel requires 15-plus years of shelf life,” Contractor said to Quartz. “The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form. We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years.”

The 3D food printer schematic (SMRC)

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