Missing form delays financial aid for some
Although the fall semester is almost halfway done, some students at the University still have an outstanding balance on their term bill.
The New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority is in the process of notifying more than 49,000 students statewide who did not fill out a new financial aid form that was introduced for the first time this year. If the form is not submitted before the Nov. 15 deadline, students' state tuition grants or scholarships will be revoked.
AnnMarie Bouse, HESAA's director of communications, said HESAA sent numerous notices over the telephone and through e-mail, attempting to notify students and financial aid administrators about the missing form.
"We have sent students 15 e-mails, made more than 115,000 phone calls and sent 91,000 letters to students to obtain the four additional items necessary to calculate students' eligibility," she said via e-mail correspondence.
HESAA is continuing to send information through e-mail and last week began another round of phones calls, Bouse said. To date, more than 232,000 students have responded.
The missing form would not just affect state tuition grants and scholarships for the fall semester, Bouse said.
"Those students expecting an award for the spring semester only, must provide the required information by March 1, 2011," she said. "Students who do not provide the necessary data will not be eligible for a [Tuition Aid Grant] award."
Bouse said the introduction of the new financial aid form actually helped rather than hurt students, as it saves students money.
"If the process was not implemented, the additional cost to the Tuition Aid Grant program would have run another $14.5 million, which would have resulted in reduced awards for students across the board of up to 14 percent," she said.
A list of 1,600 students at the University who were late on payment for the fall semester was used to find those who needed to file the new form, said Vice President for Enrollment Management Courtney McAnuff in an nj.com article. There are still 600 students at the University who have yet to respond.
"It's still a lot of people," McAnuff said in the article. "There are going to be kids who fall through the cracks."
McAnuff could not be reached for additional comment at press time.
Director of the Educational Opportunity Fund Program Eddie Manning said his organization knew about the new form before the end of last semester and sought to inform students as soon as possible.
"We've been calling students reminding them. We're just doing a lot of very proactive and assertive work to make sure they weren't adversely affected by [the new form]," he said. "I can't say it hasn't affected anybody [but] I would say that the effects of it have been minimized by the fact that we got on it very early."
The missing form affected some students because they left for summer vacation and might not have checked their e-mail, not because HESAA did not notify the students properly, Manning said.
"I'm told that HESAA did a lot of e-mailing during the summer, [and] they sent loads of notices to students to let them know what was happening and what they needed to do," he said. "But as is typically the case, some students don't follow through the way they are supposed to."
Manning pursued the remaining students and said EOF was successful in making sure the students submitted the missing financial aid form.
"So a small proportion of our students did get caught up in it, and it meant a delay for them. But once they got everything resolved for the most part, things fell into place," he said. "We basically dodged that bullet."
Although many University students found no trouble with the new financial aid form, others were not happy with the new process.
Bhavin Patel, president of the Roosevelt Institute, said after submitting and re-submitting the new financial aid form, his financial aid has yet to be cleared.
"I'm hesitant to go over to [Financial Aid] because I already gave them the documentation," said Patel, a School of Arts and Sciences senior. "There is no solid procedure. I give it to them and [they] stamp it and they say, ‘All right, it will be taken care of. Have a good day.' But then nothing is taken care of."
Patel said in order to attend classes in the fall semester, his parents had to supply an extra $3,000 because his $6,500 term bill needed to be paid in full with or without financial aid.
"We had planned to pay for $3,500 because we were under the assumption that the state and the University were competent in regard in filing the required documentation," he said. "We were wrong and we had to pay the extra money."
Patel said he does not understand why he will not see any financial aid for this semester because the state or the University lost his documentation.
"Assuming my aid is processed, the $3,000 I had to pay wouldn't be reimbursed … but would be applied with the aid for spring semester. So all of my aid would come in the spring semester," he said. "This is assuming I get any aid at all."
Patel also said he does not see how the state is saving money because they are increasing the amount of employment needed to take care of financial paperwork. He added it was not just him who was affected by the new documentation.
"For some people, their aid wasn't processed and they paid too," Patel said. "We are paying more when we can't pay."
