Several students started the term without financial aid money.
At this point in the 2010-11 academic year, the University has received 38,877 Free Application for Federal Student Aid submissions from prospective and enrolled undergraduate, graduate and law students, which is up from 30,144 last year. The number of students who actually enrolled in the financial aid program is hovering around 13,000, an increase of nearly 1,000 applicants from the 2009-10 year.
The Office of Student Financial Aid disclosed that Pell Grant recipients alone have risen from 4,165 last year to 4,575 as of Wednesday night.
Confusion on the part of students regarding the intricacies of the application process for aid has left some without supplementary funds to pay tuition and other expenses.
University senior Samantha Rood, a biology major, just received her loans last weekend, and said that her application was so delayed that she was forced to employ the help of her family and take out an emergency loan through the Billing Office.
“They specifically said to me that they were not going to be able to process my loan because their office was so overworked,” Rood said. “I had to rely on family members to get (my) first few weeks of rent paid for in the beginning of the school year.”
As of Tuesday, University junior David Shin, a business administration major, was still waiting on his aid application to be processed. The delay, Shin contended, was a result of miscommunication from the financial aid office about the status of his application.
“They are really not good at notifying people that all of your papers aren’t in,” Shin said. “They didn’t let me know that I was incomplete … (and) the only reason I found out my application was incomplete was because I went (there) on my own free will just to verify that everything was okay.”
Because their tuition bills were mailed in mid-September and were not paid by the Oct. 10 deadline, both students faced late penalties.
Shin questions whether the University should be able to fine students for financial affairs that are essentially out of their hands.
Donna Schimmer, assistant director of Financial Aid and Scholarships, substantiated the fact that the office has received a record number of applications this year, but she does not believe the aid delays are a result of understaffing.
“We stay pretty even in our staff members; the workload has gone up because of the economy,” Schimmer said. “People have lost their jobs and are finding themselves applying for financial aid for the first time.”
Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships Elizabeth Bickford said that normal processing time for completed requests not requiring further information should only be a few days.
“Two or three days for processing isn’t all that bad,” Bickford said. “We don’t hold up aid for any reason … (and) if the students do everything they are supposed to do, there should be no problems.”
Bickford agreed that the beginning of fall term is the busiest time for the office, but doesn’t believe there has been a substantial amount of processing delays.
“At the start of the term, we have a lot of people who walk in with a lot of paperwork,” the director said. “(Processing time) depends on the circumstances that the individual student is dealing with, (and) it’s hard to imagine that there is a large group of students with a systematic problem,” Bickford said.
One easy way students can safeguard their applications against delays, the director said, is to make sure the information they submit on their applications is correct and verifiable.
“If they had more complete information or clearer information, it would speed up the process,” Bickford said.
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Applications flood University’s financial aid office
Daily Emerald
October 13, 2010
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