Opinion : Ginger Staley ;

Financial aid process needs serious modernization We all know that the financial aid process is not perfect at CSU East Bay, but never in the four years I’ve attended this univer-sity have I had such difficulty in receiving benefits. It took months before my initial FAFSA application was reviewed. In June I was asked to fill out ad-ditional forms, just like I had ev-ery year prior. When I went to re-turn the packet a couple weeks later, I brought a friend with me so that she could bear as my wit-ness just in case something went awry. This was not something I usually did, but I had a feeling that something would be lost this year as the administration building was being relocated.

Over the summer quarter, I waited for any additional infor-mation to arrive. When nothing happened, I assumed my papers were all in order and that my fi-nancial aid would be disbursed a few days before the fall quarter would start. It wasn’t until two days before fees were due that I was told I would not be receiv-ing my financial aid and that I would owe Fall quarter’s tu-ition, $1697, in a mere 48 hours. Clearly, I was upset.

I went to the financial office that day to sort things out with my friend and witness in tow. The woman who helped me told me that one of the forms that was included in the packet I turned in 3 months earlier had not been coded. I asked her if she could look up my physical file, since I was absolutely sure the form was there, but she told me all of the files were boxed up, unsorted, and were stored on the floor above us. I was told to fill it out again and bring it back that day so that they could put it in the system as soon as possible. When I came back later that day, someone else told me to pay for tuition while I waited for my financial aid to be pro-cessed.

I came back the next day to verify that the document had been initiated. It had, but I still had to put the tuition costs on my credit card, on which I had just finished paying last quar-ter’s expenses. I was told that I would be reimbursed once they had reviewed that form. It could take months before I am reim-bursed, and by that time I will have paid for lots of interest ac-crued on my credit card all be-cause they made a mistake.

I understand that most stu-dents who have trouble with fi-nancial aid do so because they are unfamiliar with the process. Many students forget to turn in forms before deadlines or for-get to fill out the FAFSA on time. I am not one of those students. I have been doing this for years and have never had any prob-lems.

I would often hear horror stories about the financial aid office at the university, but I never experienced it for myself until now. It’s a trial in itself to be a full-time student working two jobs on campus to pay for rent and other bills. Both are my parents are disabled, and even if they could contribute to my education, I have another sib-ling in college. Financial aid is often the only way that students like me can subsist. Some stu-dents rely on financial aid just to feed themselves while they are studying difficult subjects that require so much time and effort it’s impossible to work and maintain good academic standing.

Financial aid exists so that students like me are able to af-ford an education and one day become contributing members of society. But implementing what society has decided is best for its future comes with lots and lots of red tape. The pro-cess often deters students from entering school in the first place or can lead to disenrollment and attrition.

The financial aid office, and the financial aid process in gen-eral, needs to be modernized. If I could have filled out my papers and submitted them electroni-cally, I could have had a record that was time-stamped. There would be a reduced chance for erroneous coding or missing codes. It would also have been easier to look up my informa-tion instead trying to locate one paper in a stack of thousands upon thousands of request forms.

Every time I go to the finan-cial aid office I can only observe about five workers assisting ridiculously long lines of stu-dents, all with their own woes and anxieties. These office workers need more help. They need people to double check their work, to relieve them when they’ve been listening to com-plaints for hours on end. They need help in reviewing and cod-ing all of the forms so that stu-dents can have more than two days notice that they will owe nearly $2,000. They need more people to help them make the transition to the new adminis-tration building.

Even though the university is scaling back on faculty and staff, I implore the university administration to add more financial aid and enrollment agents—because sometimes, students’ entire livelihoods depend on it.