"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?" ~ Clint Eastwood
May 21 has come and past but it might as well be the end of the world. Financial aid: with those two words dogs hide, women faint and men arm themselves for a coming battle. That may not be the exact truth but whenever I enter the financial aid doors I can almost see the lone tumbleweed rolling into oblivion as Clint Eastwood swaggers out and stares me down. Okay, that's a huge exaggeration but you get the picture. When I graduate college, I half expect to minor in dealing with financial aid because I've spent so much time on it.
This all started about a year ago when I declared my course of study (at a 2 year school, they're not majors) as Electromechanical Engineering. Now, there's a deal Miami University of Ohio has with Columbus State Community College (CSCC) and it goes like this: Miami accepts CSCCs aassociate degree as the first two years of their bachelor degree in Electromechanical Engineering. So pretty much, I'm going to get a degree from Miami for less than $13,000...just for comparison an average degree from Miami if you actually went there is about $50,000+ for all four years. It's a pretty sweet deal. If you can deal with the financial aid aspect.
Here's the deal: CSCC says that because I'm not taking all CSCC classes (I'm taking 1 or 2 a quarter to finish other requirements) I am not eligible for CSCC financial aid anymore. I have also extended the possible credit hours allotted to my degree. This makes sense if someone is only getting an associates and then moving on, it doesn't make sense if you're staying two extra years to complete a bachelor degree. So, Miami has to pay for the CSCC classes; it's possible but you have to have an agreement signed by a Miami advisor. Now the whole reason I'm doing this whole thing (going to Miami through CSCC) is so I don't have to physically go to Miami campus. I mean, I'm sure it's nice and all but it's about an hour and a half both ways: time and money I don't have. And to top it all off, my distributor says I've been out of school for 6 months.
Do I know what I have to do? Yeah, I have to get this agreement signed (I'm not sure how) so that Miami and CSCC can talk about how Miami is going to pay for my classes. If I were the only one doing this program I would classically expect problems but this program has been around for at least 5 years and at this moment there are about 20 or so students in this program at CSCC. You think there would be a financial advisor set aside to deal with programs like this; yeah, it would make sense wouldn't it? So of course, they don't. Every single visit to the financial aid office feels like a battle and I always feel unarmed. Every visit yields a new piece of information that I previously didn't know.
What makes it even worse (and I'm not trying to be racist) is most of the financial aid workers are either black or Arab. Now, there's nothing wrong with that but I'm a white 22-year-old female and they treat me as if I don't really need financial aid. They act like I'm just mooching off the government and my parents really do have the tuition money, that I'm just being a white, rich, republican and making the government pay for everything. They have one of those things correct: I am white. I am neither rich nor republican. Just to state this: I'm conservative but I vote for who will do the best job. I don't care if you're republican, democrat, green, independent, or whatever, if you're going to do a good job I'll vote for you. Sorry, tangent. But these people are discriminating against me and I swear they just give me the minimum information so that I'll go away.
Sorry for the major rant. Sometimes it feels like I'm in this alone but then I go to school and talk with my friends and realize we're all in this together (okay, honestly: how many of you just started singing the High School Musical song in your head?). Now I know Yoseph is going to Franklin next quarter so I'd love to know his opinion on this.
~Katie
May 21 has come and past but it might as well be the end of the world. Financial aid: with those two words dogs hide, women faint and men arm themselves for a coming battle. That may not be the exact truth but whenever I enter the financial aid doors I can almost see the lone tumbleweed rolling into oblivion as Clint Eastwood swaggers out and stares me down. Okay, that's a huge exaggeration but you get the picture. When I graduate college, I half expect to minor in dealing with financial aid because I've spent so much time on it.
This all started about a year ago when I declared my course of study (at a 2 year school, they're not majors) as Electromechanical Engineering. Now, there's a deal Miami University of Ohio has with Columbus State Community College (CSCC) and it goes like this: Miami accepts CSCCs aassociate degree as the first two years of their bachelor degree in Electromechanical Engineering. So pretty much, I'm going to get a degree from Miami for less than $13,000...just for comparison an average degree from Miami if you actually went there is about $50,000+ for all four years. It's a pretty sweet deal. If you can deal with the financial aid aspect.
Here's the deal: CSCC says that because I'm not taking all CSCC classes (I'm taking 1 or 2 a quarter to finish other requirements) I am not eligible for CSCC financial aid anymore. I have also extended the possible credit hours allotted to my degree. This makes sense if someone is only getting an associates and then moving on, it doesn't make sense if you're staying two extra years to complete a bachelor degree. So, Miami has to pay for the CSCC classes; it's possible but you have to have an agreement signed by a Miami advisor. Now the whole reason I'm doing this whole thing (going to Miami through CSCC) is so I don't have to physically go to Miami campus. I mean, I'm sure it's nice and all but it's about an hour and a half both ways: time and money I don't have. And to top it all off, my distributor says I've been out of school for 6 months.
Do I know what I have to do? Yeah, I have to get this agreement signed (I'm not sure how) so that Miami and CSCC can talk about how Miami is going to pay for my classes. If I were the only one doing this program I would classically expect problems but this program has been around for at least 5 years and at this moment there are about 20 or so students in this program at CSCC. You think there would be a financial advisor set aside to deal with programs like this; yeah, it would make sense wouldn't it? So of course, they don't. Every single visit to the financial aid office feels like a battle and I always feel unarmed. Every visit yields a new piece of information that I previously didn't know.
What makes it even worse (and I'm not trying to be racist) is most of the financial aid workers are either black or Arab. Now, there's nothing wrong with that but I'm a white 22-year-old female and they treat me as if I don't really need financial aid. They act like I'm just mooching off the government and my parents really do have the tuition money, that I'm just being a white, rich, republican and making the government pay for everything. They have one of those things correct: I am white. I am neither rich nor republican. Just to state this: I'm conservative but I vote for who will do the best job. I don't care if you're republican, democrat, green, independent, or whatever, if you're going to do a good job I'll vote for you. Sorry, tangent. But these people are discriminating against me and I swear they just give me the minimum information so that I'll go away.
Sorry for the major rant. Sometimes it feels like I'm in this alone but then I go to school and talk with my friends and realize we're all in this together (okay, honestly: how many of you just started singing the High School Musical song in your head?). Now I know Yoseph is going to Franklin next quarter so I'd love to know his opinion on this.
~Katie
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