USA Government Education $ - I wanna milk the system.. ideas?

So I got this 19 year old swedish girl living with me at the moment. She’s taking 1 course (which I’d estimate takes about 2 hours of her time / week) which she takes online.

In exchange for this the Swedish government gives her around $300 dollars a month. As she lives with me she has zero expenses so she doesn’t even need a job in order to live now. She says she can do this as long as she wants to.

So, I’m thinking, we got this big liberal guy in the white house. Does that mean we have programs like this too? Maybe, I just don’t know about them?

I’d like to be unemployed eventually for about 6-8 months before I go and get an MBA. During this time, ideally I’ll be paid a salary in severence. But it would also be nice to maybe take an online pottery making course and get paid 300 dollars a month for it, as I will be living somewhere tropical and cheap having the time of my life and 300 dollars a month goes a long way in such places.

Appreciate any thoughts or ideas.

Isn’t the career of Matthew Lesko based entirely on this premise?

http://www.lesko.com/

Yeah, that guy. I love him.

Sweden has a great welfare system…that’s why they went broke a decade or so ago. Before implementing the final part of your plan I suggest you watch Return to Paradise. It will give you some good ideas about what not to do while living your short time in the tropics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Paradise_(1998_film)

Sweden went broke?

yes. in the 1990’s the collapse of the real estate bubble ended in govt taking over around 25% of bank assets. GDP tanked and the welfare system and high levels of government spending, referred to as svenska modellen, could not be sustained. I think that at some point the central bank raised rates on the order of 100’s of percent to maintain a fixed FX

Wait, so she gets $300 a month just for taking an online class? Does she have to pay for the class? Do they at least specify that the classes must be in certain (useful) fields?

Off topic: Apparently, Sweden is now an employment destination for Greek youth. Not sure if this means Sweden is doing ok nowadays, or if it’s just that Greece is so messed up.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-11/greece-s-students-fighting-stray-dogs-and-despair-amid-college-budget-cuts.html

“The whole class is planning on leaving for Sweden,” Athanasopoulou said. “We hear it has a good economy, good salary, good working conditions.”

In the US to get those, I think you have to be either VA/welfare queen.

I never qualify for anything good. The best thing I get from Canada is a few hundred a year…I get $97 every quarter because of a low income sales tax credit, haha. I am def not low income anymore since I started a full time job in January but due to the way the tax year/credit year system works, I’ll continue to get it until June 2013.

Yeah, she gets 300 for a stipend. Doesn’t pay for the class either.