Car Trek Helps Launch Crowd Funding for Teenager's Music Education Funding
Traverse City, MI (PRWEB) May 26, 2016 -- Car Trek – The Karaoke Cab, a regular advocate for the arts, is helping to launch the Go Fund Me online crowd funding campaign for Dorran Godfrey, aged 13 of Traverse City. Godfrey is pursuing a career in music with the goal of studying at Interlochen and Julliard. However, the education funding required per year is more than $49,000.
With the rising costs of college education, much of the burden is falling upon students who, of necessity, are getting creative in their own education funding process. Godfrey is well known locally, grass roots crowd funding with his saxophone downtown, raising money for his goal to become a full time musician. Although proving inspirational in the local community with his creative approach, Godfrey is realistic about his college education funding. Godfrey candidly notes, “…this is more money than he earns in a year … I don’t think I can count on my dad to solve this one for me.”
Car Trek showed its support by funding Godfrey to produce a video and crowd funding page at Go Fund Me, showcasing his musical goals and his unique spirit and drive. Car Trek is also working locally and online to help secure education funding for Godfrey’s music goals. Financial support is, of course, always welcome. However, the community can help Godfrey in other simple ways by sharing his video and crowd funding page at http://gofundme.com/entertainer, helping with musical instruments or being willing to act as a mentor.
Realizing how expensive tuition can be for music art schools like Interlochen and Julliard, Godfrey’s video and crowd funding page creatively explains his step by step plans to achieve the much needed music education funding. With regard to his desire to study at Interlochen and Julliard, Godfrey reasons that it is doubtful whether such music education costs can be covered, without help from the crowd funding community. This is why Car Trek is strongly supporting his music education funding efforts.
Although Godfrey’s approach is unique, his college education funding problems are not. According to Forbes, the education funding requirements this year to study at a public college in the United States averages $28,387 (including fees, books and housing). In disciplines such as engineering or the arts, certain courses are only taught at private schools, requiring about $59,341 in higher education funding. On the other hand, the Department of Numbers reveals that the average household has a median income of $53,657 and the income per person is just $28,889.
A year of funding a college education now thus requires more than the median annual income in the United States. Although financial aid and scholarships have helped, two other Car Trek customers note that, like Godfrey, crowd funding was an important strategy for them too.
Martin Cooksey, an electrical contractor from Cadillac, MI describes needing a second mortgage of $45,000 to fund daughter Melanie’s college. “With a lot of help from other family members raising money for us … she still needed a couple of student loans.” Even with grass roots crowd funding efforts of family members, fully two thirds of students in the United States graduate with college debt, totaling more than $1.2 trillion. Cooksey added, “A decent education should be a basic human right, not something for the rich or having to work years to pay off.”
Many nations appear to agree. Several countries offer free or minimal cost college education funding for United States students, such as Norway, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden, France and Brazil. Germany, too, is actively seeking foreign students to meet its shortage in the workforce. A fact that Maria Ellis, aged 19 from Kalkaska, MI is happy to exploit while studying International Business Management at Hochschule Furtwangen. Crowd funding through the local community again proved helpful in raising her travel costs.
Regardless of other efforts to solve college education funding, it seems likely that, in the future, crowd funding strategies like Godfrey’s will become increasingly necessary.
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M. F. Godfrey was born in England and has lived in the United States since 1996. Previously an educator in Massachusetts and Michigan, he currently owns and operates “Car Trek – The Karaoke Cab”
Sources
United States Household Incomes
Projected College Education Funding
M. F. Godfrey, Car Trek - The Karaoke Cab, http://cartrektc.com, +1 2316202249, [email protected]
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