I've been looking around for college scholarships and whatnot and I ran across Americorps first, and then shifted over to the Peacecorps information. Volunteers with the peace corp make a 27 month commitment. 3 months of it are intensive training, including 4 to 5 hours a day in language classes. My daughter perked right up on hearing that. Then after you complete your two years of service, they release you with $7400, what they treat as a re-entry into the real world thing. But that $7400 would go for college in my daughter's case.

So the plan is looking like sending her to the community college for 2 years and then sending her to the Peacecorps. And then when she comes back she can have her records transferred to the local university. Or she could re-sign up.

During the Peacecorp time they pay a monthly stipend for housing and food and they pay for the cost to travel to and from what country you are assigned to. They also have full medical and dental.

The only requirement is that you are an American citizen and 18 years old.

So it looks like we will only need to come up with $15,000 for her two years at the community college and then we can save the rest of the rest of the money for her years at WWU.

Then we can repeat the whole thing with DS. Although he says he might like to go straight out of high school, giving us more time to save for his college.

The other ramification is that once they go there for two years, they will not be our dependents so that means the schools or organizations will not be allowed to use our income in considering grants and scholarships. And their minor income during those years will put them well below the threshhold for some of these grants.

They are excited about it now. Let's see how things are when the time comes.