Veterinarian's assistant relies on school grants

LOGANSPORT, Ind. (AP) - Marley Roudebush had earned college credits while in high school and attended classes at Indiana University-Kokomo and Ivy Tech in Logansport. But trying to balance raising three children and attending classes got to be too much for her wallet, and she dropped out before finishing a degree.

Now, five years later, the single mother is back in the classroom pursuing an associate's degree in agriculture so she can turn to her children and tell them how important it is for them to further their education, too.

Roudebush, 31, works full time at the Cass County Animal Hospital, where she helps treat farm animals and pets as a veterinarian's assistant. Sometimes, she'll still be wearing scrubs splattered with animal fluids when she shows up to class at Ivy Tech, where she's enrolled this semester in two classes on site in Kokomo and a third online.

Animals are simply part of Roudebush's life. She loves them, she said, and wants to run a large farm someday. Already, she's got a menagerie of pets she and her children care for at home - rabbits, four dogs, three outdoor cats, a bearded dragon and a guinea pig.

That's not even counting the Holstein cows she sold when her family moved to her current home in Lucerne.

"I cried when I sold my cows, like a big baby," she said.

But she knows it takes more than a love of animals to run a successful agribusiness. So in classes now, she's studying the finance side. And that's after about a year and a half navigating the finances of getting to college in the first place.

Burdened with more than $11,000 in college debt from her first go at college - "that was the only way to do it, with the kids," she said - she knew she wouldn't be able to return unless she got scholarships to cover her college expenses.

She had previously been granted scholarships through Indiana's Frank O'Bannon Grant and 21st Century Scholars programs. But she was no longer eligible for 21st Century Scholar funding, she found out, and faced other barriers to getting financial aid.

"There were bumps, little bumps everywhere," Roudebush said. She worked for months with Melissa Dwight, a financial adviser at Ivy Tech, to appeal her financial aid status. The process involved a lot of waiting - "waiting on responses, waiting for stuff to get back and forth," Roudebush said.

Dwight, who splits her time between Ivy Tech's Logansport and Kokomo campuses, kept in touch with Roudebush by email and phone as her appeal progressed, meeting with her as needed on Fridays.

"She had a financial aid snafu that we had to work through," Dwight recalled. Once the appeal was started, "it was kind of a rush process."

Finally, in November 2016, Dwight told Roudebush she was again eligible to receive financial aid.

"I can't even explain the feeling when she said I could do it," Roudebush said.

After that, she went through the same processes other students do - including filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is used to determine eligibility for a variety of grants, not just federal need-based ones.

About 70 percent of students in Ivy Tech's Kokomo region complete the FAFSA, a financial aid official said, and just over half of Ivy Tech students received federal or state aid last year.

More students would likely benefit from filling out the FAFSA but think their families make too much money, said Angie Martin, director of financial aid for the region. That's not usually the case, she said.

In addition, some scholarships are awarded regardless of need, like one designated just for Cass County students, but still require students to fill out the FAFSA, Martin said. Last year, the region awarded some $485,000 in college and foundation aid like that scholarship. That was on top of $10 million in state and federal aid students in the region received.

But whether from federal grants or local foundations, Roudebush is grateful for the scholarship funds she's been awarded.

"It should pay for my entire degree," she said.

And now, she's sometimes awake until midnight or 1 a.m. to finish homework before heading to work the next morning. Roudebush's children - 11-year-old Mackenzi, 10-year-old Kyle and 8-year-old Cameron - ask her how she does it, she said.

She tells them she wants them to see how important college is for her, and to be eager to attend college after they graduate, she said.

"I've always tried to teach my kids that ... you've got to work for everything that comes in life," Roudebush said.

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Source: (Logansport) Pharos-Tribune, http://bit.ly/2kjrQGk

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Information from: Pharos-Tribune, http://www.pharostribune.com