<p>Go to community college, sorry. I had to do the same because my mother didn’t fill out her taxes. It sucks, but it’s better than nothing. Also, you could take a semester off and work, and see if things can change by then. Or, go to CC for the semester and transfer the credits. It’d save some money, too.</p>
<p>Never mind, it’s a bit late for that…silly me. I take what I said back.</p>
<p>Fullofpop, I can understand how frustrating and stressful things have been for you but I think you should step back a bit. It sounds like is a new thing at this particular school (things are getting a bit muddled)…is that right? If so, it may be that they’re inept, have new people working in FA, or are simply understaffed but it also may be that the file was shelved due to the SAP/disqualification issue and was simply overlooked. It’s possible that there is only one FA advisor who works on such cases and some CC’s have many students who have had poor starts. </p>
<p>In any case, although it was 18 weeks since your initial app, one wouldn’t expect to receive aid right away and you really didn’t receive your aid any later than many college students across the country - that is, those who credit accounts after the official census date. The Dean’s office did help you get back on track promptly (and courteously, I assume). I really think you would be better off focusing on more important matters now that you’ve resolved your issue as any “investigation” into the matter would likely reveal that delays happen where special circumstances exist and not that you were singled out for mistreatment in any way. At the end of the day, this could and does happen everywhere.</p>
<p>@ArtsyLover: I am at a community college. </p>
<p>@sk8rmom: I understand they’re trying to do more with less due to the budget issues, and I’ve tried to be patient with them through this, I’ve never been rude to anyone in the FA office, etc. But finding out it took them almost two months to even send me an e-mail upset me. If they had notified me all of this could have been done two months earlier, and I would have started the semester with money. I understand they had many appeals to work though, but going from a 4-6 week wait to a 12 week wait is pretty excessive. In addition, for at least part of that, no one knew where my application was. There was no note of it in the system, no one could find it, and I could not reach the supervisor who handles the appeals to ask her. </p>
<p>As to “you really didn’t receive your aid any later than many college students across the country”, are there many colleges who don’t give their students financial aid until halfway through the semester? My semester started August 15th. It’s halfway over now. </p>
<p>I do want to point out (and thought I said before, but I could be mistaken) I don’t think I was purposefully singled out for anything. There isn’t someone in the financial aid office rubbing their hands together and cackling over me. I’m not that big of a deal. But given the number of delays and the length of the delays and the total inability of anyone I contacted/tried to contact at the financial aid office since July, I still feel this needs to be looked at. Someone, somewhere, dropped the ball in a majorly bad way. I’m not giving this school the chance to do it to me again, but I still feel asking for an explanation is fair and if there’s something that can be done to tighten up the process so other students don’t have to deal with this, that would be great. I’ve heard a number of financial aid horror stories from my campus this year, just within the small group of people I have classes with.</p>
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<p>Actually, yes. Perhaps not quite that late, but the cc by my home doesn’t start dispersing excess financial aid until after about 6 weeks. This is because they need to verify that you’re actually attending classes.</p>
<p>What is “excess” financial aid?</p>
<p>^ Financial aid that is in excess of tuition and fees. The financial aid that allows you to pay for textbooks, backpack, scantron, paper, and other stuff that you listed in post 3.</p>
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<p>It’s not uncommon. This year we received a notice that both of my kids’ public schools (4 year university) would wait until after the census date to credit any non-scholarship aid…this is a change from prior years and I’m not clear as to whether it is a change in federal regs, state regs, school policies, staffing, or a combination thereof. The census date was around the fifth week of classes. I noticed that the FA page at my son’s CC lists the first possible refund date for any grant aid or loans as 6 weeks after the semester begins and they only credit/ refund 50% of loans and grant aid at that point. Any remaining balance is refunded at the end of October. This is his first year so I don’t know if that’s consistently been their policy or not but, from reading their website, it seems they’re particularly cautious so that students aren’t put in the position of having to repay federal grants/loans if they drop classes late and are subject to return of Title IV aid calculations. I’m sure they see more of this at the CC level than at the university and it makes sense that they would take this step to avoid having to rebill students for aid that was disbursed but ultimately not earned. I believe that federal regulations currently require a student to maintain enrollment for more than half of the semester in order to “earn” federal aid.</p>
<p>Well, that’s something I’ll know to keep an eye out for in the future.</p>
<p>It’s not the case at my college, though. The first disbursement for federal aid was August 11th this year, just before the semester started. They do break it up into two payouts-the second is on Nov. 3rd.</p>