Got financial aid yet?

After nine weeks into the semester, 135 Winston-Salem State students, still have incomplete financial aid packages.

There are 6,000 students attending the University and  5,220 receive financial aid. 

This fall more than 595 students received their financial aid packages outside the four-to-six weeks standard processing time, said Robert Muhammad, director of financial aid. 

The implementation of  new U.S. Department of Education regulations, may be causing  financial aid processing time  to be  slow.

Processing times have been extended from a standard two to four weeks to more than six weeks, Muhammad said. 

"This year is unlike any other year I've experienced, and I've been in financial aid a long time," he said.

The DOE is  requiring an IRS tax transcript. 

In the past, students were permitted to submit copies of their 1040s for verification to the financial aid office. However, because of inaccurate data, the DOE imposed this law to ensure that students and parents were not taking advantage of the system Muhammad said. 

The DOE also placed a Pell Grant cap which limits the number of semesters students can receive the grant. 

In the past, there were no limits on the number of semesters  that students could receive the grants as long as students met the guidelines. This year the maximum number of semesters is 12. 

As a result, the financial aid staff had to conduct manual checks for Pell Grant eligibility and many students were in the dark about the changes, Muhammad said.

"It [new DOE regulations] created bottlenecks for us, compounded by students conditioned to turn in certain documentation," Muhammad said.  

The DOE had no idea the impact the new regulations would have on universities,

Muhammad said.

The regulations created a huge strain on financial aid personnel Muhammad said.

"At this point, I have been very apologetic to students," he said.

Nine of 12 financial aid office staff positions have been filled.

The vacant positions are due to be filled in the next three months said Randy Mills, associate vice chancellor for financial planning and budget.

"The challenge is to fill the positions with good, qualified people," Muhammad said. 

In addition to personnel, the financial aid office has technological problems.

"One of the biggest concerns we hear from students are telephone issues. That is something we are acutely aware of," Muhammad said.  

In some cases, students are on hold for long periods of time, are disconnected, or cannot get through he said.

"Sometimes we receive faxes without a cover page and without Banner IDs which adds to the difficulty of an already complex situation."

WSSU implemented the "Promise to Pay" contract to prevent students from being purged. Promise to Pay has some merit, compared to other universities that just decided to continually purge students Muhammad said.  

The contract permitted students to sign for their tuition bills without knowing their balances or financial aid award.

"We can do a better job than what we've done," Muhammad said.  

The financial aid staff is supposed to record all communications with students to ensure that there are no inconsistent messages.  It all goes back to how well our staff is following procedure, he said. 

"That way you don't have to keep going down there."  

"I had a problem with my scholarship not posting to my Banner Rams account," said Harvey Long, a senior English education major from Yanceyville, N.C.

The University's financial aid office is comparable to other campuses in the UNC system Mills said.

However, when compared to other UNC schools, the University had the largest number of loan payments not dispersed within 13 business days according to the 2010 UNC Key Performance Indicators report. The amount totaled $31,609. 

Along with WSSU, only UNC-Charlotte failed to meet this requirement; even so, their amount was significantly less, totaling $4,186.

Muhammad said he hopes to make changes to address student concerns, including the web site confusion.

"I understand that the documents on the WSSU site can be confusing for parents that are looking for updated information; if you don't look in the right location you may be led to outdated information." 

"In a perfect world, I would like to implement a fax-to-email repository," Muhammad said. 

This would address some of the misplaced documents and give students confirmation that their documents were received, he said.

"Over the next year there will be quite a few changes with the financial aid office," said Tomikia LeGrande, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment services.  

"We ask that students attend workshops and stay abreast. We want students to be informed to avoid confusion," LeGrande said.

LeGrande is no longer the assistant vice chancellor.