For Taurie Matt, higher education offers a path to building a better life for her family.

To achieve that dream, the Pablo resident enrolled in a business management program at Western Governors University, an online school with an accelerated curriculum that meets her needs. She also works full time as an accounting technician for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes credit department, and, with her husband, raises two active kids and rides herd on three dogs.

A recent scholarship from the Gianforte Family Foundation is helping her stay in school without drawing down her family’s resources. With scholarship funding for two terms totaling $2,600, she was able to pay a portion of her tuition without incurring debt. The scholarship also helped her buy the tools she needs to succeed at school, including a computer compatible with WGU’s platform and an iPad that allows her to do schoolwork “on the go,” including in the bleachers during her kids’ sporting events.

“I picked Western Governors for a couple of reasons,” she said. “It's got an accelerated program. It is completely online, so I can do things whenever I can fit them into my schedule, and I liked that it had the program to completion that I wanted and the next one that I'm interested in.”

Matt, who graduated from Polson High School in 2011, had some prior education, including EMT training and a certificate in business administration she earned in North Carolina while her husband was serving in the military. She also has a broad swath of work experience, having worked at Safeway, Glacier Bank, the Leader and now in the Tribes’ credit department.

“I've got a lot of finance background and a lot of business background,” she says. But, without a degree, she struggled to advance.

“I was finding that while I had experience from previous jobs, it doesn't always translate to the next position,” she says. “I knew that if I wanted to set myself apart and to get the pay that I deserved based on my knowledge and experience that I had to also gain higher education knowledge.”

She adds that the quest to find a good job with decent pay is harder in rural areas, where “there's not a lot of jobs to start with.”

Matt aspires to build a career that will allow her to work from home “and spend more time with my kids, my husband and my pets.”

According to a report from the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, she’s not alone in that goal. Flexibility in education and jobs was identified as an important factor in sustaining a strong workforce in the state's new 406 JOBS initiative, which aims to create “targeted outreach and flexible training pathways that remove barriers to employment.”

Since Matt works four 10-hour shifts for the Tribes, she can spend Fridays on her assignments. She took 22 credits her first semester, but discovered that was overly ambitious due to all her other responsibilities.

She dropped back to 12 credits for her second semester, and plans to amp up again when she enrolls in her third semester in April. She’s still on track to finish in two years.

Even though she doesn’t attend a brick-and-mortar school, Matt says she engages regularly with her teachers and counselors, and has opportunities to interact with other students in her program. Her studies have included many areas that are relevant to her current job, including basic accounting, critical thinking, human resources and conflict management, and she’s been able to apply real-world experience to the assignments she’s completed.

“So far, it's all been material that I can apply back to real things I've done or the job I do,” she says. “As long as I have a way to bring it back to my present life, I get the concepts.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in business management, she’s already considered moving on to the master’s level accounting program.

She describes her family as “very supportive,” and says her kids have learned to recognize when she’s in “school mode,” and save their anecdotes and questions for later. Her husband, “even though he’s a night shifter,” will get up on his days off “and help get the kids settled for the day,” while her dad “has been a big part of everything too … So they give me the space that I need.”

The scholarship has helped her feel good about investing in her career.

“It's nice to not have to worry about the downstream effects of the financial decisions I'm making as I'm going to school, because that can impact my family for years,” she said.  

She and her husband want to have the resources to attend to their children’s needs, as well as their dreams. “We want to build a life of experiences with our kids and financially you have to be in a place to be able to do that.”

Scholarships are helping her accomplish those aspirations and can help others reach their goals too.

“A lot of people are willing to help you with schooling,” she says. “With scholarships, it’s all about reaching out and finding them, and being willing to do the work.”