Clap if you you hate Financial Aid at your school

[Sherry Darling]

My student loan aid check is late. Thus my bills and rent are late. My aid guy is openly rude and wishes to blame me when he told me it would be here in 10ish days without checking whether or not everything was in order (by his own admission).

And 29 is way the hell to OLD TO BE DEALING WITH THIS SHITE!

In sum,

That is all. Thank you!



SD

 

[Ultraviolet Light]

.. ..

(is there still a limit to how many smilies you can post?)

I get, as my high school physics teacher would have said, "less than diddly" financial aid because I'm an only child. Clearly only the supremely rich have just one child! In fact, when I was younger my parents bathed me in money because there was only one of me! I want to pay 100% of my tuition - in fact, why don't I pay 110% and then everyone who works for financial aid can go on vacation with the extra money!

I mean, I'm nice?


*edited because I'm a nerd and wanted to line up the smilies.

 

[kellyahern]

Dealing with the financial aid office taught me the definition of "bureaucracy"

 

[Liesje]

FinAid here is USELESS. First of all, most of the named scholarships are for minorities. Now, that's cool, but I go to a pretty upscale private college. The foreign students here are from elite families in Africa and Asia; they are NOT poor orphans who grew up in mud huts with no shoes. These kids have been travelling since grade school and most of the ones I've talked to have attended various elite boarding schools in Africa and Europe. i've never even been on a plane! So basically, they get most of the scholarship preference just b/c they're dark skinned. It pisses me off even more when people that have been adopted into upper class white families in the area get these scholarships. The households in which they've grown up are about as far removed from third world Bangladesh that you can get. Not to mention the loose academic requirements for people that have slightly darker skin. The specific scholarship that my school give out to minorities is a joke. To get a merit-based scholarship of $2500 you need a GPA of 3.0. To get a minority scholarship of $5500, you need a GPA of 2.5. If you're white and want $5500, you have to come in with a GPA of 3.95 and ACT of 3.0 and then maintain a 3.5 or better to keep the scholarship. And this is fair how?

Then, there's the way the school and FAFSA dole them out. I pay for EVERYTHING on my own: tuition, room and board, utilities, food, clothes, books, transportation, my computer, etc, but yet they use my dad's income to decide how much I'm worth. Then, since I work on-campus, the school does this thing where when they total up how much you still owe, they take your work wages and throw them in the mix as "work-study". So when I met with the loan councellor, she started telling me I had a positive balance. Well, it turns out it's b/c I make $1000 a month here during school and $1500/mo during the summer b/c I work my frickin ass off. So they just automatically assume your wages go towards tuition. Turns out I'm thousands in the hole when on their computer screen, it looks like they owe me money.

 

[U2democrat]

i'm a southern democrat, and i demand a minority scholarship!!!!!!



though it is not a joke. i'm off to college in a year......the financing will be dandy

 

[Keocmb]

I don't qualify because I make "too much" money. I'll tell ya, if only that were my problem.

 

[Liesje]

i'm a southern democrat, and i demand a minority scholarship!!!!!!

Then there should be a minority scholarship for those who are completely financially independent of their family. That would be like 20 people at my school!

Or, a minority scholarship for people of a certain race even if they're white. For example, I'm 100% Dutch as far back as the days of European feudal kingdoms. Now I respect my African-American classmates, but many of them have been in the US for more generations that I. Not to mention my family still speaks Dutch, though not so much anymore with my generation. My mom is pretty much fluent in Dutch and our specific dialect and she's never taken Dutch class and has never lived in the Motherland. But alas, I'm white

 

[Ultraviolet Light]

There's a difference between the theoretical "minority scholarship" and the minority scholarship at our school [LivLuv and I go to the same school] - the former I have no problem with, but the latter is a joke.
A friend got her tuition all but paid for because she's Indian (from India Indian, not Native American - and actually she was adopted as an infant into a family as white as mine) - I don't know what her GPA was in high school or what she got on the ACT, but, how do i put this delicately, if she had been white she probably wouldn't have gotten any merit based financial aid.

Here they just pay the non-Dutch/white people to come here so they have some semblance of diversity when they need pictures for a brochure. It sounds sad, but it's true.


*edited because I'm a freakin' genius today and I kan't speel.

 

[Keocmb]

Here they just pay the non-Dutch/white people to come here so they have some semblance of diversity when they need pictures for a brochure. It sounds sad, but it's true.

My school does the same thing but they do it to all the non-white students. And they give basically all foreign exchange students (usually from Japan) completely free rides just so it'll look diverse.

Fucking hate this school sometimes.

 

[Liesje]

Yep. I especially loath the part where they assume my dad is going to foot the bill, which he doesn't, so I get lots o' loans and make lots o' monthly interest payments....and then my dad gets a tax break for having a college student.

I think the major issue is the cost of tuition. One of my Profs was amazed when we told her what it is now. She said "10 years ago someone said to me 'what if it cost $100,000 to get a degree?' and now it does!". Yes, it does

 

[Merc]

One of my Profs was amazed when we told her what it is now. She said "10 years ago someone said to me 'what if it cost $100,000 to get a degree?' and now it does!". Yes, it does

What a strange, strange system...

 

[nurse chrissi]

What is more fun(not) is actually starting to have to pay the darm things off - thinking about going BACK to school so I can defer the fringgin' things - that way I'll finish paying them off when I'm 80
Sherry - 29 is not too old for these things - good for you!

 

[Sherry Darling]

.. ..

(is there still a limit to how many smilies you can post?)

I

SD

 

[neutral]

i'm a southern democrat, and i demand a minority scholarship!!!!!!

I should have tried for that one too

 

[arw]

I QUIT the first school I went to because of their financial aid. Well ok it was because the school sucked in general but it was also because of their financial aid office. They were absolutely horrid people and I was a little nervous about going to the financial aid office for the first time at the university I ended up graduating from. They were nice and understanding and helpful and called you back (or emailed) when you left a message. It was a 100% better but I know what you mean about crappy financial aid people. It's like they don't care that you are going to be flat broke and bounce a check because they didn't bother to tell you that you needed to fill out yet another form before you'll actually see any money even though you got your letter of approval saying how much money you'll get and what day your check will arrive in your mailbox. I had 2 years of hell with that first school and their financial aid office.

 

[Kristie]

Then there should be a minority scholarship for those who are completely financially independent of their family. That would be like 20 people at my school!

have your parents stop claiming you as a dependent so the financial aid people stop counting their income, too?

Would that work?
... I'm not really sure, but it's an idea.


I personally have never had much of a problem with financial aid except for this year, 'cause my mom's poor and it's just me and her. Well, according to the financial aid people, they don't need to know about my not-quite-stepdad. I get about $15,000 a year, about half is paid by random grants that just kind of showed up, other half loans. Tuition is something like $6k a year for us in-state people, the rest is for food and rent and the like. What gets me is that my aid statement says I get like $2000 a year from my mom when she makes less than $20k a year. Yeah, not quite. In reality I get nothing from her. Well, emotional support.

 

[Liesje]

have your parents stop claiming you as a dependent so the financial aid people stop counting their income, too?

Would that work?
... I'm not really sure, but it's an idea.

See I don't know how it all works. The thing is that I need my dad to co-sign some of my loans, so then I'm guessing I can't claim independence. As of last year, I'm not on my parents' health insurance either so really my only connection to my dad is the co-signed loans.