More complications than usual for Southern University students, when it comes to problems with the Office of Financial Aid being corrected.
Mandated by the Healthcare Reform Bill, all colleges and/or universities in the United States were forced to move their source of lending to direct lending. This bill indicated that after July 1st, all of the loans would be processed through direct lending which includes subsidized, unsubsidized and plus loans and non private lenders, which are based on credit.
“This is a monumental movement,” Ursula Shorty, Director of the Office of Student Financial Aid said. “This is completely different to what we were used to,” she continued.
The decision made to switch to Direct Lending was mandatory. It was not chosen by the institution, it was chosen by the Department of Education, Shorty said. She also made note that if the university had not switched to Direct Lending, there would not have been any option for loans.
“It was in our student’s best interest to switch,” Shorty said.
Due the Bannerweb mainframe operating system not being completed on time, this pushed the Financial Aid process back by six months.
“A process that usually takes six months was completed in six weeks,” Shorty said.
If Bannerweb is properly implemented for the new school year, Shorty hopes there will be no major issues, just small quirks that will halt the Financial Aid process, as it did this year.
The priority deadline for verification purposes and for completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is March 31st. The FAFSA is not complete without the verification items which include loan applications. If all items requested by the Office of Financial Aid is not submitted by March 31st, then the process “If students just submit the FAFSA and not the verification items, then we cannot move forward,” Shorty said.
Shorty also made note that when students submit incomplete applications and fail to check back, this causes the long lines during the Fall registration process.
She also said that some students did not include their loan application with their FAFSA.
When asked about the student’s cooperation with the lending process, Shorty said that our students cooperated last year as well as they did this year. “The majority of them did their information on time by adhering to the deadlines,” she said. “Unfortunately, you always have some that wait and you can’t get around that,” she continued.
The Direct Lending process is not as quick as the Sallie Mae process was. “However, I feel it is more efficient,” Shorty said. “We are able to track it better,” she continued.
She said that the qualifications for Direct Lending are more lenient than Sallie Mae. “There were more loans approved this year than before,” Shorty said.
According Shorty, there were not that many students who took advantage of the help seminars in February 2009 giving information about the switch from private lenders (Sallie Mae). Roughly ninety percent of students attending Southern are on some sort of financial aid.
“We were hoping that we had gotten more response. We are hopeful that next year through the initiatives we will get them done,” Shorty said.
Currently, the Office of Financial Aid has 12 staff members, which Shorty feels is very low, considering the number of students the office serves. “We probably need somewhere around 20 individuals,” Shorty said.
“Some schools with 3,000 – 4,000 students have staff of 12 members,” she continued. Shorty feels she needs more staff members in order to continuing to be efficient.
Shorty also said she lost three financial aid counselors during the last two months. “We lost a loan counselor in June and two financial aid counselors during the registration process unfortunately without much notice,” Shorty continued.
Even with budget cuts the university system is experiencing, Shorty hopes to fill these positions because this is an important area. “This (Office of Financial Aid) is the main vein of the university,” Shorty said.
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Financial Aid adjusts to updates
August 26, 2010
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