Pursuing Advanced Education in the “Heartland of Dixie” – Alabama Colleges and Universities

James — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:07:52 +0000

With its low cost of living and favorable tax laws, Alabama is a desirable location for individuals wishing to work and study. Alabama houses 7 of Inc magazine’s top 500 companies, and boasts a workforce training program that was ranked first in the U.S. by a 2006 Expansion Management survey. Numerous Alabama colleges and universities offer a variety of degree programs for workers looking to start or advance a local career. Securing a future through advanced education in the state of Alabama is now easier than ever before.

Prominent Alabama Industries Hire Graduates of Alabama Universities and Colleges

Prospective Alabama college students can expect to find career opportunities in some of Alabama’s fastest-growing occupations. The Alabama Department of Industrial Relations reports the following industries as significant contributors to the Alabama job market: Alabama Health Care Support. Alabama Computer and Mathematical Science.

Alabama Personal Care and Service
Alabama Office and Administrative Support
Alabama Sales

Graduates of Alabama Colleges and Universities Enter the Leading State of Economic Development

In June, 2006, Alabama was named “state of the year” by Southern Business and Development magazine. Alabama’s acclaim for four years in a row is due to its high levels of job growth and economic development. Below are several promising statistics for prospective Alabama university students:

The September, 2006 Alabama unemployment rate was 3. %, compared to the national average of 4. %. Over the past 12 months, there were 26,000 new nonagricultural wage and salary jobs added to the state of Alabama. The 2004 – 2005 Alabama median household income was $37,502. 2,129,821 people are employed in Alabama.

Alabama Financial Aid Programs Help Alabama College Students Achieve Education and Career Goals

Students attending Alabama universities and colleges can expect to find numerous sources of financial aid. Alabama schools, such as Kaplan University and University of Phoenix are also prepared to accept state and federal student loans. Several financial aid options reported by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education include:

Alabama Student Assistance Program
Alabama Education Grant Program
Alabama Nursing Scholarship Program
Alabama Senior Adult Scholarship Program
Alabama Two-Year College Academic Scholarship Program

For more information on Alabama schools and career opportunities, prospective students may explore College-Pages.com, a leading education and career resource website. Students will find an extensive list of available Alabama degree programs and informative articles for making education and career decisions in the state of Alabama.

Tags: Alabama, Campus Degrees, college students, colleges and universities, degree programs, education, financial aid, Online Degrees, scholarship, University of Phoenix

Department of Human Resources in Alabama

James — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:03:05 +0000

Alabama’s Department of Human Resources is dedicated to providing safety net services to Alabama citizens in need of them. Families and children in need can find a wide range of services through the Department’s service bureaus. There is an office to serve each of the state’s sixty seven counties. The services offered through the Department are focused on the state’s poor and families that are dysfunctional or shattered.

Within the Department there are about twenty divisions. The department employs about six hundred social workers; their service subdivisions include:

Child Support Enforcement Child Care Services Adoption Foster Care Food Assistance Division Family Financial Assistance Program Consolidated Child and Family Services Plan/Title IV-B Adult Protective Services Equal Employment and Civil Rights

Administrative Divisions include: Field Administration Quality Control Program Integrity Personnel Center for Communication Legal Management and Fiscal Analysis Administrative Hearings Contracts and Grants

The state’s biggest social support service is the food assistance program, which had almost 250,000 recipients at the end of 2005. The number of recipients for some sort of child support was nearly as high. Presumably this figure includes a number of the child support services within the Department of Human Resources, which include subsidized day care, the federal consolidated program under Title IV, the family financial assistance program and other services provided through contracting non-profits.

The Alabama Department of Human Resources was hit hard by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Nearly sixty thousand households applied for disaster-related food stamp support. The state allocated funds for cash payments to families who had evacuated to Alabama from Louisiana and Mississippi and could not return home. Applications for funding support approached ten thousand.

Alabama itself had ten counties declared disaster areas.

Alabama has incorporated a job development program into its Family Assistance Program. All parents that are enrolled are required to participate in the JOBS program. Participation is defined as working in either a subsidized or unsubsidized job; enrollment in an on-the-job training program; job search; job readiness classes; and vocational training.

This welfare-to-work concept helps ease chronically unemployed people back into the job market. It provides assistance with the barriers to employment, such as child care; job training; job application classes; and other methods helping the family move into the mainstream. The Department takes an active role in dealing with Alabama’s underclass.

In February of 2006, they announced a grant program for their enrolled families in the Family Assistance Program that will subsidize heating bills. The state subsidizes child care for 27,000 children through contracted agencies and in November of 2005 found the funding to add an additional 2,000 children to the program.

Alabama’s welfare-to-work program has been so sufficiently successful in placing job trainees that the federal Health and Human Services Department has awarded them with additional grants for the program in 200, 2003, 2004 and 2005. The state operates twelve Family Service Centers around Alabama that provide walk-in counseling and support, in order to pull needy families into the services that the state has developed to help them.

Tags: Alabama, Business and Management, department of human resources, employment, human resource

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