Many nontraditional students may find it difficult to juggle school, work and often a family into their schedules.

The Adult Student Scholarship Fund committee supports nontraditional students in their struggle to attend college by offering seasonal scholarships.

“Indeed it is a worthy cause, and I am glad I joined,” said Sally Pease, adviser to the group.

Pease said she enjoys the group because it is set up to provide support to adult students in need.

The amount of responsibility taken on by many adult students is best represented by the president of the Adult Student Scholarship Fund, Jim Higdon, Pease said.

Higdon, a senior in English, is one adult student who finds time to work, student-teach, coach a junior high girls’ basketball team and support his family.

When searching for a worthy recipient for the scholarship, the responsibilities of candidates are considered.

Other considerations include: how far the student has to drive to school, how many dependent children he or she has and the number of hours the student works outside of class, Pease said.

Nine staff members review the scholarship applications and decide on the recipient.

“However, our staff is temporarily under-staffed. We currently have four members on our team,” Higdon said.

The committee has been so under-staffed lately that at a normal fund-raising event the group only had 15 volunteers, Higdon said.

During a normal year, the minimum requirement for volunteers at a fund-raising event is 25 people, he said.

“The main source of raising funds for the group comes from concessions at football games or concerts taking place in the Iowa State stadium,” Pease said.

This type of fund raising is usually very successful, she said.

However, this year the group ran into another problem because there were no concerts held in the stadium.

“The money collected from the games and concerts is then put into an endowment fund to collect interest. Then we take that interest and at the end of the semester we put it into scholarships,” Higdon said.

The scholarships are still given almost every semester, he said. In fact, last semester, despite the hard times, the group still gave out 10 $250 scholarships.

The committee is holding elections this month on Feb. 18. There are many positions available and the group encourages all nontraditional students to apply.

The group’s office is located on the lower level of the Memorial Union.