The traditional (non-JELF) financial aid gave me just enough to cover tuition, books, and some of my housing. The financial assistance provided generously through JELF covered living expenses that allowed me the opportunity to further my education through extracurricular experiences, rather than having to spend that time working a part-time job. These experiences helped me get a job at IBM in New York and begin my startup.
These extracurriculars involved me exploring emerging technologies in an innovation competition where I created an application to streamline traditional and autonomous parking with an IoT-enabled parking garage. I co-founded the FSU Sports Analytics Club which served as a consulting organization to FSUs Division 1 athletic department. This eventually positioned me to serve as a director for the Inaugural Sports Analytics Summit. I also was a runner-up in an FSU Startup Competition with my company Athlogic, a free application to help HS football teams take stats and then college football teams buy those stats for sabermetric recruiting and to automatically clip game film.
The average cost of college in the United States is $35K a year. This cost is only going to continue to grow.
31% of Jewish families have a household income of under $50K. The Jewish community is not immune to debt or hardship.
That's a problem! With student loan debt at an all time high, JELF is here to help!