Free tuition for volunteer firefighters

If you’re a parent, worried about how you’re going to pay for your child’s college education, you may want to encourage them to join the local fire department.  The Firemen’s Association of the State of New York (FASNY) has just started a new program that will reimburse the cost of an Associates Degree to anyone who serves the community.

Abby Dingman became a member of the Castleton Fire Department before she even graduated from high school, “my dad was a chief here…my brother joined when he was 16, it’s kinda a family thing,” she says.  For her, serving the community is a given, “you get to help a lot of people and you have a good time while you’re doing it, you meet a lot of new people,” Abby says of why she joined the fire department.

But donating her time, is also paying her tuition at Hudson Valley Community College.  Abby is taking advantage FASNY’s new HELP incentive.  The Higher Education Learning Plan covers the cost of an associates degree to any full or part time student who joins a local fire department.  The hope is that these grants will help boost volunteer numbers across the state which are dangerously low right now.

“We’re hoping it’s going to make a big difference, we’re hoping to get about 15,000 new volunteers out of this program,” says FASNY Chief Administrative Officer, David Quinn.

Students can major in any discipline and go to any community college in the state but there is one big string attached, “they have to be a volunteer firefighter while they are in college and for up to a 4-year period after completion of their courses,” according to Quinn.

About 100 students took advantage of the grant program during the fall semester which was the first time it was offered