Enrolling in school should not be this hard

Before the fall semester begins, every veteran Southern University student gears up for long lines in registration. This year however, we could barely get into the J.S. Clark Activity Center before we were turned away, told we had outstanding balances, or simply didn’t exist. Only two members of the editorial board were able to have a fairly easy time of registering, but many of us weren’t so lucky. On a greater scale, thousands of us faced truly heinous events just to continue our journey in undergraduate life.
It seems odd that a student who comes to school at ten in the morning has no chance to even gain entry into the 10 hour financial aid line, when all he needed was a two second acceptance of a third party scholarship.
Even after rising earlier the following day, following the old adage, “the early bird gets the worm,” a Southern University police officer turned tens of students away, claiming that the line was closed.
Closed?
Before financial aid even opens? No one was able to make heads or tails of anything, as even questions required a seat in the financial aid line. While there was a generic question and answer person rotating in and out, answering with a smile and an underlying, “please don’t get an attitude” plea, several students were threatening to call everyone from both local news stations to the governor of Louisiana to the president of the Unites States.
We wondered: is this what we had to look forward to in the upcoming semester-long lines, dead ends, an upward battle to get money that was already ours?
Consider the student who was recently awarded scholarship money from the spring semester, which, for all intents and purposes, was an academic year ago. After making four trips to the administration building, the college from which the award was received and the Cashier’s Office, the student was told that ‘they’ had no idea where her check was, given several suggestions on where it could be. Checks are not ‘Where’s Waldo;’ they should be in secure places, easily accessed by those in control of such matters. After being told of the sole offices responsible for scholarship checks were the Office of Student Financial Aid and the system’s foundation, a check dated May 8 finally found its home.
The DIGEST, and we’re sure the campus as a whole, has lost members of its staff due to what we can only imagine is poor timing and lack of communication on either side. Students have been charged with having outstanding balances from semesters long gone and are required to repay them back.
One student who had to undergo what he called a ‘terrible’ experience, waited an entire day, from 7:30 a.m. until closing, only to be told that he would have to return the next day. Even after signing and mailing all information to financial aid, including filling out a Federal Free Application for Financial Aid (FAFSA) on-line, his registration process wasn’t complete until Monday, the first day of school.
We’ve seen students huddled in the ‘Mini Domes’ chairs, covered in blankets and head scarves, wondering aloud why they’ve chosen to matriculate at Southern University, and sharing horror stories of financial aid lines ‘back in the day’. It’s sad to see students try to outdo the other; one came at midnight and camped out until the doors of the ‘Mini Dome’ opened at 4:30, to secure seats in the prime real estate of the lower level yellow chairs; students who have to bring bagged lunches for fear of being skipped; nontraditional students taking sick days and leave to complete one form, only to be told that they aren’t in the system, enrolled, or a real person; raised voices in anger, because someone believes another has ‘skipped’ them in line; the list could go on until next year’s registration process, but the fact remains that in 2008, a graduate from 1997 should not mock current students on “how good we have it.”
Good has to be a relative word, right?
Perhaps the Baton Rouge campus should enter the 2000s, and update and upgrade its programs, a bigger flaw than long lines.
With fiascoes like 2008 Registration, its no wonder why enrollment is down. Students are readily talking to an indifferent news media, and retention has become such an important factor during a time when Southern University should be gearing up for the Southern Association Colleges and Schools Accreditation.