As an AmeriCorps Member, You'll Receive a Wealth of Benefits
Perhaps the biggest benefit you will experience when you join AmeriCorps is the satisfaction of incorporating service into your life and making a difference in your community and your country. But there are other benefits as well.
Whether you are tutoring kids, building homes, clearing trails and streams, mobilizing resources to create a local health clinic, or participating in any of the hundreds of other goal-oriented AmeriCorps projects, you will be able to really see the results of your work and know you made a difference.
But there is more. As an AmeriCorps member, you'll be eligible for a variety of benefits that make the dedication of a year of your life worthwhile.
You Will Be Able to Pay Your Bills
Many AmeriCorps members receive a modest living allowance. You will not get rich from it, but most AmeriCorps members have found that it covers their basic expenses.
Help with College Costs and Student Loans
Congress established the National Service Trust to provide an AmeriCorps Education Award for members who successfully complete service in AmeriCorps. You can use your AmeriCorps Education Award to pay educational expenses at qualified institutions of higher education, for educational training, or to repay qualified student loans. The award - recently renamed the Segal AmeriCorps Education Awards after Eli Segal, one of the pioneers of the national service movement and the first CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service - is $4,725 for a year of full-time service, and is prorated for part-time. You have up to seven years after your term of service has ended to claim the award.
At the time you use the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, you must have received a high school diploma, or the equivalent of such a diploma.
If you successfully completed a term of service with AmeriCorps*VISTA in an approved national service position, you are eligible to receive either a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award or an end-of-service stipend of $1,200. The Segal AmeriCorps Education Award option is subject to available National Service Trust allocations to AmeriCorps*VISTA and must have been selected prior to the start of service
Learn more about the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award
View a list of colleges and universities that match the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award
The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 created two new federal programs: a new Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and a new Income-Based Repayment plan (IBR) for the repayment of federal loans. The new Income-Based Repayment plan helps to make repaying education loans more affordable for low-income borrowers, such as an AmeriCorps member living on a stipend; AmeriCorps service is also recognized as equivalent to a public service job for the purposes of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Learn more
Work and Life Skills
As an AmeriCorps member, you will gain valuable experience in an area that interests you that can translate directly into job experience in your chosen field. You will learn teamwork, communication, responsibility, and other essential skills that will help you for the rest of your life while gaining the personal satisfaction of taking on a challenge and seeing results. Many find their AmeriCorps year to provide them with more experience and skills than they would have gotten in a traditional, paying job.
Posted By: Marta Fernandez
Friday, March 27th 2009 at 1:39PM
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