By Matthew Grace

Meet Angela Bradford: successful student, mother and career woman. She is also a former welfare recipient. Six years ago she had a choice: Find a low-paying job to support herself and her children or apply for welfare and enroll in school, thus developing skills for the job market.

She has been off welfare for three years and has seen her horizons expand dramatically. She hopes to become a public-advocacy lawyer and represent women whom, like her, face the restrictive federal welfare law enacted two years ago.

Bradford, a gregarious 32 year-old woman with a bright smile and a quick laugh, is relaxed as she talks about her decision to go on welfare. But the smile occasionally turns into a frown as she talks about the difficulties she faced while on public assistance.

Her problem began when both she and the father of her children, a childhood sweetheart, realized that they had grown apart. Fortunately, the break-up was amicable. He agreed to share custody and help out financially.

"We were too young," she says. "People grow up and grow apart."

Nevertheless, she faced a mounting pile of bills and an uncertain financial future. Welfare appeared to be the only way she could continue to take care of her children while she returned to school.

Applying for assistance was a humiliating experience for her. She was often required to stand in line for hours, as caseworkers gave her conflicting directions and appeared hostile towards all of the applicants.

The ordeal led her to conclude that the welfare bureaucracy was more concerned with paperwork and its seemingly arbitrary rules than it was with the families it was originally designed to assist.

Bradford and her children received $144 per week while she was on public assistance, a sum that the state courts recently ruled was not sufficient to pay rent in New York City. The father of her children contributed when he was able, but because he too was a student, the contributions did not amount to much, she said.

She is now a senior in the Community Health Education program on campus. She also works full-time as a coordinator for the Welfare Mothers' Survival Network, a welfare-to-work program in the Bronx that helps mothers face the same obstacles that she faced six years ago.

Welfare allowed Bradford to obtain an associate of arts degree. This in turn gave her the opportunity to work as an intern for one year with the Department of Health, gaining experience in the health field and making contacts for job opportunities. Later on, she was able to explore employment options at the Welfare Law Center, where she found a job opening with the Welfare Mothers' Survival Network in the Bronx.

Her home life has blossomed also. Now seven months pregnant, she lives in the Bronx with her new partner and her children, ages 7 and 13. With a guarantee of leave from her work and the anticipation of a new baby, her smile beams as she visualizes the future.

"Everybody has a goal," she says. "Truly look at your life and ask what you want to do."