Fund Addresses Students’ Plight: Say You’re Gay, and Parents Won’t Pay
The ever spiraling costs of sending a youngster to a residential four-year college can overwhelm the pocketbook of almost any family, but the cost of cutting off a financial lifeline when parents learn of their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity can have even more crushing consequences on the student.
Even in these relatively enlightened days of the second decade of the 21st century, rash decisions by upset parents to pull the plug on their child’s education are commonplace. Studies suggest that nearly half of LGBT students still try to hide their orientation from family through high school and into college—especially if they believe their parents will strongly disapprove. Gay psychologist Michael LaSala, author of the book Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child, writes that despite all the positive reasons for youngsters to be open with their families, “sometimes it might not be a good idea…Parents still reject their children when they come out—ejecting them from their homes and ceasing all financial support.”
Once they head off to college, students often feel freer to be themselves and trouble with parents can ensue. That’s where an innovative new program at my alma mater, Ohio University in Athens, comes in. In what may be the first financial assistance program of its kind, the Tom and Jan Hodson LGBT Support Fund makes grants to students whose families have stopped contributing because of their offspring’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“We’ve seen so many students trying to come to grips with having to tell their parents and their siblings,” says Tom Hodson, a lawyer, communications professor and former director of Ohio’s Scripps School of Journalism. “Then that trauma is sometimes exacerbated by their families cutting them off financially, making it difficult for them to continue their education or pay their rent.”
His wife, Jan, who was assistant dean of the Honors Tutorial College for 14 years before her recent retirement, cites the example of one of her students last year who had arranged a study-abroad trip, which her mother originally agreed to help pay for. That is, until the student confided to mom that she is lesbian. The student, of course, was distraught that her exciting educational opportunity was lost because of her honesty. “I immediately started calling around at the University in search of some sort of emergency fund that I thought must exist somewhere. I mentioned it to Tom and he’s the one who said, ‘Why don’t we start a fund like that?’”
Tom, a former classmate of mine at Ohio University, where we both immersed ourselves in editing the daily newspaper The Post, says, “Students often decide that if they just deny who they are for three more years they won’t have to worry about it, but that takes a toll. We don’t want somebody to have to deny who they are, especially for financial reasons.”
Personally, I’ll never forget how upset I was in 1966 when my father threatened to cut me off if I quit the ROTC program, which suited neither my chemistry nor my emerging feelings about the war in Vietnam. I finally did resign after accidentally shooting another student in the foot the first time I was handed a rifle with live ammunition. I understood little about guns and even less about how a bullet in a seemingly jammed weapon can ricochet off a concrete floor. Fortunately, the other student sustained only a glancing flesh wound. Still, I was certain that by dropping out of ROTC I would have to quit college and find a way to support myself on my own.
After some tense moments, my dad came around, but I can only imagine how much more dramatic our showdown would have been if I had informed him that I’m homosexual. That wasn’t even an option back in the day; it would be another seven years before I was comfortable letting my parents in on that basic fact of my life. Fortunately, they were fine with my reality by then, especially since they liked my (still) partner, John.
The Hodson Fund is administered and distributed by the director of the university’s LGBT Center, who screens applicants and makes grants based on a student’s individual situation and the amount of money available. Tom acknowledges that it’s still a fledgling product, “but we’re trying to raise more so we can help more people.”
(To donate, call The Ohio University Foundation at 800-592-FUND or visit their website. Enter Tom and Jan Hodson LGBT Support Fund in the box marked “Other.”)
It would be wonderful to see more universities create similar funds, but if you are a student or are helping to finance an LGBT student’s college education, you should be aware that numerous other forms of scholarships and grants are available on various campuses as well as through national LGBT organizations. Some awards are based on academic achievement, others on community involvement or monetary need.
A good place to start researching is the website FinAid, which strives to be a comprehensive national directory of student aid and features a listing of LGBT-related grants. The site currently lists more than 60 organizations that provide direct aid to gay or transgender students.
Similarly, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has an online directory of scholarships searchable by state. Click on Virginia, for example, and you will find that the Arlington Gay & Lesbian Alliance funds scholarships for public high school seniors who are active in their school’s gay/straight alliance. Or click on Maryland and discover that the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Equity at the University of Maryland provides scholarships for its students who have promoted civil rights by working to end discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Florida-based charitable fraternity Gamma Mu Foundation offers approximately 20 scholarships each year (grants of from $1,000 to $2,500) to gay men who want to further their education with full-time study at an accredited college (no online degree programs) or vocational or professional training program.
PFLAG (Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays) has an extensive scholarship program both nationally and through its local affiliates. Students are eligible to receive aid from a local chapter and the national office so they are encouraged to apply for both. A directory of local scholarships as well as an application is online.
Almost none of the financial aid programs currently available offer enough money to cover more than a fraction of the cost of attending most colleges. But the growing number of resources specifically to help LGBT students is encouraging, and they can be of significant short-term help, especially when misunderstanding parents fail to support their own kids.