For various reasons – including financial – some students were not prepared for classes their first two weeks of school at Winston-Salem State because they were unable to purchase their textbooks.
“It’s frustrating, very frustrating,” said freshman Rondal Moore, a nursing major. Moore said she submitted her financial aid application by the deadline and was still waiting for her loan from the College Foundation to be certified by WSSU on Sept. 8. She was, however, able to get most ofher textbooks. The one textbook she was not able to obtain, “Reading Study Skills,” was not in stock at the campus bookstore.
” ‘No books’ means complications for your classes,” Moore said.
Students who receive financial aid obtain vouchers for $500 from Billings and Receivables for the campus bookstore. The $500 is then deducted from their refund checks.
Not all students want to buy their books from the campus bookstore, however. Willie Gilbert, a senior chemistry major, receives a scholarship from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and says he hasn’t run into any problems of not having textbooks. He buys his over the Internet from Ebay or Amazon.com. “They areoverpriced in the bookstore,” he said. He has never been scammed online, he said, adding that “sellers have certain ratings, and I never buy from sellers who don’t have any ratings.”
“First of all, it’s against the law to disburse checks before classes start,” said WSSU Financial Aid Director Raymond D. Soloman when asked why students don’t receive their refunds before the first day of classes. “The earliest students can get their checks is on the first day of classes; and by law,” he said, “colleges have until the tenth day of classes to disburse refunds.”
Soloman, who has worked at WSSU for a year, has 13 years of financial-aid experience with other colleges, includingIndiana University and Miami Dade.
The other colleges he has worked at do not disburse refunds until after the last day a student can drop or add classes, he said.
“Most institutions, ” said Solomon “say, ‘Show up with cash for your books.’ “