financial aid and rants and raves

This entry was a long time coming. I tried to update the blog on Sunday, but the school lost power and everyone lost all their data. I was lucky; I only lost my entry. Others lost huge amounts of work and couldn't even retrieve their disks. If I had been working on my thesis at the time I might have been suicidal. Monday was a snow day, although I feel the college actually pulled the trigger a little early. I'm not complaining, just making an observation. I bopped around the county running errands and did a HUGE pile of laundry. I spent 25 bucks on washing machines and I still have 3 large garbage bags of clothes to go. I'm terrible at keeping up with stuff like that, and I needed to buy outfits for work. I'm pathetic. Anyway, I was working on a folder today and the mother's hand written notes made me remember our conversation a few months ago. She insisted that because her son no longer received SSI for his disabled father, it did not need to be counted. WRONG.... *sigh* It did, and I entered in the corrections. The student still got aid, but the 8700 in benefits definitely took a chunk of money away. There is no specific lesson but there is a moral: Don't give your financial aid counselor a migrane; we get testy.

We had a visit from our friendly neighborhood lender rep to day. Lender reps (LRs) breeze in and discuss what their bank is all about and how good they are. Much of this is horseshit, as interest rates and repayment plans are set by the feds, but some of the larger banks give breaks on the rate or stretch out the payments. They don't have to do these things, but it helps their business and can help turn the students into long term customers while establishing good credit; it's a nice win-win for all involved. The best part for us is the free stuff. Have you gone to the doctor's office and seen a mouse pad for penis pills? Same concept. I'm looking at a CD/DVD holder with a bank's name on it, and I wish I had this before my beloved GTA:SA disk was scratched beyond repair. Anyway, today's lesson is choose your lender with great care. You'll owe this company lots of loot, so choose one with good breaks (like above) and good customer service.

Feb 17th 6:33pm NYC time.

It's the winter and the living is easy. I've figured out why no one with any political power really cares about global warming: people like it. Seriously, we had near 60 degree temps this week and it was great! Imagine the positive impact on the local economy compared to a snow storm. It made me want to tear open the A/C unit of 1975 Caddy and bask in the Freon vapors. Put ripping open the storage tanks of a dry ice factory on my to do list as well. Joking aside, the living is easy because my school's financial aid office is quiet like a tomb with only a few stray students milling about trying to finish up their aid packages.

As part of the ongoing education about financial aid, let me state that other colleges do not operate this way; i.e. the insanely expensive private universities always leading the national rankings (or at least the national party rankings....) that strike terror in the baby boomer parents who suddenly realize they needed to save for their kid's (kids' ?) education when the rug rats were being created. I can now ask if the botox addiction, tit lift, and daddy's Porsche were worth it. I'm short on sympathy because I don't work at such a school and I owe $60,000 grand in student loans myself. The busy times for these institutions is January to early March. They hand out all the loot and lounge until October when kids starting flaming out and some of the money need to been taken back. I have those conversations myself, and they are
never pleasant.

To wit, today's financial aid lesson: you must remain in school for a certain percentage of the semester/quarter/trimester/whatever before you have "earned" you financial aid. The official time? 60.1 % of the term. If you drop out earlier, you can owe the school $, the feds $, or owe both. Owing the college is bad, but owing the feds is worse. Effectively, you are in default on a student loan and cannot get $ EVER until you repay the money. If you are such a situation, contact the feds ASAP.

I'm new to the whole blog thing, so please bear with me. Anyway, I'm a financial aid counselor at a community college. I'm also a pain in the ass. So I'll chronicle the
pitfalls of fucking up your financial aid and how the world blows. This sounds like fun!!!!