Tuesday, May 22, 2018
On the road again, or...
History has just repeated itself, so that must mean it's time for farce.
One year ago I found myself traveling to Corning NY, for the SUNYFAP annual convention with my director, and the post on the trip can be found here. I went this year as well, although the circumstances were a little different: our director retires at the end of May 2018, so I went with my fellow counselor Chris, who will be the acting director until we hire a new one. I had to go, since Excelsior was the main topic, just as it was last year, along with a new wrinkle: Part Time Scholarship (PTS), applicable only to community colleges, and just as contradictory, opaque, and stress-inducing as Excelsior. It's small in size, but so are blue-ringed octopuses, and I prefer to avoid both.
The biggest change from last year to this one was not this new program, though I know I'll hate it and it will give me even more busywork, but that Excelsior is now a year old, so I was looking for direct, clear answers to questions we've been asking since day one. This was my mission, and it's one for which I'm uniquely suited. Talking to people and finding out information they'd rather not reveal is one of my specialties, so if anyone in the office can gain clarity, I would be that person.
In a perfect world, I wouldn't have need to go to the convention with this specific a goal in mind. SUNYFAP used to be a chance to network with your fellow financial professionals, search for new jobs, and have lenders and services take you out to dinner. New ethics rules and the Great Recession took care of all that, though I did get a nice coffee cup:
(For some reason the pic is banned because it's a possible alcoholic beverage. It's a freaking coffee cup! Anyway, on with the show...)
Cute, but I'm not sure it's possible. Couldn't it say that I make financial aid tolerable, or something less than torture? Anyway, you always learned new things at the conference, but they were general in nature and it was never necessary to go to learn about specific programs; we would have had training seminars locally, webinars, etc. Last year was supposed to be the exception; since Excelsior appeared out of nowhere and as the event was only a week later, that would have been the first training available anyway.
So why was it so important that I attend this year? Because the Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC), still hasn't really given schools any real clarity or official, written guidance, and we've been clamoring for both all year. This is not to say we're not getting any information at all; I have the coordinator on speed dial and we're on a first name basis. Still, in the nearly 20 years I've been a financial aid counselor, there has never been a program, on any level, that didn't come with specific, official rules in a guidebook when the aid type was introduced. Excelsior was slapped together over a weekend (seriously), and without any input from people in financial aid (seriously part 2), so HESC not having all it's paperwork together was excusable - a year ago. It's far less understandable today, and that uncertainty caused a sense of existential worry I couldn't quite place, something gnawing in my subconscious. I'd figure it out, but not until end of the trip.
Excelsior and the new scholarship were not the only topics covered, and I had a few presentations to watch before the main events. The first subject was Cross-Registration, an interesting policy that attempts to codify and digitize taking classes between SUNY campuses. Truthfully, cross registration has very little to do with financial aid; it's almost all admissions and academic advising, but there's money involved, so we're usually the first office called. We aren't the first state system to standardize this process; Florida and California have had policies in place for years. Because New York's system is older, and therefore more fragmented in a way FL's and CA's are not, our new system is a little different. Pre-approving classes for transfer between state schools used to be a paper intensive process, but now everything is online. It's not perfect, and there's still some confusion as to who can be charged what and why, but I actually like what SUNY did here. If we are changing our focus from providing opportunity to ensuring completion, this was a needed step. However, there's a loophole the size of the Holland Tunnel: schools can always say no to allowing a class to be taken at a different school. For example, SUNY Buffalo, rightly known for its engineering programs, will not allow a student to take Physics 404 at another college, even another SUNY. This specific example happened to a close friend of mine, and he remarked that the final exam at the other state school was the first chapter at Buffalo, so the exclusion was justified. With this, the schools maintain their academic independence, and for Buffalo, Binghamton, Albany, and Stony Brook, I understand. A community college having a blanket policy denying all applications if it offers the class itself? That's less excusable.
Another session worthy of my time was the general HESC update. This was not meant to cover individual programs, so this wasn't why I came, but it would prove interesting nonetheless. When a student applies for financial aid, he or she has to use tax forms from a specific year. Fall 2018 uses 2016's tax returns, as an example. If this is no longer representative of the household income, then there was a mechanism in place to review the circumstances. Give me a letter explaining the situation, and documentation as needed, and I may be able to lower your income. This only worked for federal aid (Pell), and if my calculations didn't get the students any free money, it wasn't worth the paperwork. Private schools do this much more often, since they give away their money as scholarships (really discounts on tuition).
HESC's aid programs had no such mechanism, until now. If the family had a divorce, legal separation, or a death in the family in the up to two years before the application period, then the student can now apply for an income adjustment. When I said the word now, I mean one week prior to my typing this sentence. The process and formula used are needlessly complicated, which is unsurprising considering this is New York State, but the good news is that I have nothing to do with it save awarding aid at HESC's direction. You apply online, send in your proof, and they crunch some numbers. It won't help that many people, but it could increase the number of Excelsior approvals. It could also have some unintended consequences. Legal separations can be done easily and undone just as quickly. Could families catch on and try to get more aid that way? It's possible, and if HESC doesn't ask for too much paperwork, it might work - in theory. It will depend on how much documentation HESC requires: proof of separate domiciles, utility bills, etc.
The other sessions on Wednesday were the standard boilerplate updates, and none had any real surprises or impact, so they aren't worth cataloging here. Once our afternoon sessions ended, we were on our own for dinner, and I was happy to eat some BBQ on Market street with my fellow WCC attendee. We talked mostly about the changes that were taking place at the school, with our director retiring and his taking over until a new boss is hired. If you told me in 2001 that I'd be the most senior counselor and he would be in charge, I'd have laughed out loud. Nevertheless, here we are, and I'm... worried. Oh well, at least I'll get plenty of overtime from now until October.
Thursday started with a breakfast buffet, multiple cups of coffee, and a little hope that the sessions about Excelsior and the PTS would make my job easier. These presentations would also be live-streamed and recorded, so my boss could watch with me. I warned her that my snark would be on full blast, but she didn't seem to mind.
The first presentation was nothing but a repeat of a webinar that my director and I watched a few months ago. It detailed the worst kind of bureaucratic busywork: the colleges receive form X-1234 and the schools send back form 1234-X, both as Excel spreadsheets. First, I already knew all this from the webinar; second, I don't I have any control over the electronic comings and goings of data, so this was irrelevant. Even worse, the person giving the presentation was the same monotone presenter from the webinar, and as she spoke my director and I were sending panicked text messages back and forth. I sat through it anyway, hoping for a kernel or two of new information. We didn't get any, and at this session, we weren't allowed to ask questions either.
The rebuttal to my angst is that not everyone watched the seminar the first time, so they needed this info. That's fair, in that some people may been recently given Excelsior as part of their jobs, but for the rest of us, it was a waste of time. At minimum, the session should have included some new information. Otherwise we could have watched the seminar in the comfort of our offices, and avoided the late snow squalls hitting the Finger Lakes and the Twin Tiers all week. Did I mention the weather was unusually cold and snowy? No? Well, I just did. I certainly wasn't getting 26,000 steps in a day this year.
The second seminar started off with a similar recap: who qualified, how much money the family could make, etc. However, there was some new information, and we would be able to ask questions. I had a series of questions prepared, naturally, courtesy of me and my boss prepping for the trip. Effective administration of a financial aid program is a negotiation between the rules, the regulations springing from those rules, and exceptions. To allow a functioning system to be created, governing principles must be created and explained. These guidelines allow us to decide what takes priority when a contradiction occurs or a situation pops up that isn't covered in the regulations. As Excelsior had no financial aid input in its final form, it is filled with contradictions that a non-profession wouldn't know existed. Absent these written rules, nor any guiding principles, our questions were the first real opportunity to force HESC to give answers on the record. With that I asked my questions. The responses were not only lacking but in one case, outright wrong.
One of those bedrock principles of financial aid is that you have to attend class for a certain period of time, and if you don't, your aid is either deleted or reduced. You aren't considered full time, because you didn't legitimately attempt full time studies. The worst (best?) part is that the student is still charged full time tuition. Since the professors don't report attendance until three or four weeks into the semester, registration would be closed at that point. As I tell students, you broke it; you bought it.
Both state and federal aid followed this line of thinking for as long as I've known, at least until Excelsior. Technically, it isn't financial aid anyway - it's a scholarship, but I feel we're splitting hairs. When the law was written, lawmakers used the term liability, so when a student incurs the full charge for full time classes, he or she receives Excelsior, regardless of attendance. However, if the student drops the class during the first few weeks of the term, the tuition charge wouldn't be fully charged, so the student would lose Excelsior. Does this mean they wanted students to blow off class but still remain registered? Probably not, but that's what happened. On the other hand, the law also states that the student must attempt full time study, which should mean you need to actually go to class. As per HESC, they didn't realize this was a problem until I pointed it out to HESC some 4 months ago by comparing the rules for Excelsior to TAP and how the aid programs have the similar language but aren't in sync. They said they would look into the contradiction, but for now, pay the student and they would get back to us.
We didn't hear back, so there I sat with the above scenario as one of my questions. I could have peppered her all day, given the opportunity. Mostly I'd have screamed why between inconsolable wails, but such Gestalt would have to wait. I asked my question, again pointing out the contradiction between TAP and Excelsior, and she told us that was had to pay students for both programs regardless of attendance. Our silence was deafening, then all the air was sucked out of the room.
After the initial shock, I and every other counselor in the room gasped at what she said. Either she was incorrect, or we have all been processing state aid incorrectly for at least 20 years. My boss sent me a text, asking if she heard correctly. I confirmed that she did, including the cries of disbelief. It's certainly possible that she could have made a mistake, but why were we so shocked? Because the presenter was the person in charge of all New York State aid. Whatever questions I had after that became irrelevant. I couldn't trust her answers, or I couldn't trust my own knowledge. On a certain level, I felt bad for her. I'm sure she's excellent at what her job demanded 18 months ago. The first Excelsior presentation detailing various spreadsheet types was much better. Then again, it was also a repeat.
While I was shocked to the point of defeat, others still had some fight. The questions came fast, and she did her best to keep up. I cannot say she actually tried to answer them. I could go back and listen to the recordings, but I'm not a masochist to the degree needed. One of the more pointed queries was when were getting the mythical regulations on paper with real guidance. She didn't know, and at that point I gave up.
The PTS session was next, and although I didn't want to attend, I sat through it. As expected, it was another publicity stunt with no real impact. Thankfully, the application is processed entirely by HESC, and the award is small: $1500 for the year. However, this ward can be back-dated to Fall 2017, which could pose problems with over-awards. At worst, it might be 1 or 2 students, but it was the principle We have yet to get a roster, so I'm not sure anyone even applied for it. The scholarship has no specific income criterion and only a small pool of money from which to draw, so not everyone would be approved. We were told that awards would go to the most needy based on income, but anyone can apply. I'm sure I'll have some explaining to do in the future and I'm not happy at the arbitrary method of handing out the money, but of all the ways this program could have gone, this was fairly benign.
There was another session between PTS and dinner, but I had no desire to attend it. It wasn't that important anyway, so went to my room, thought about what had transpired, and moped. I eventually mustered enough ambition to walk to a Van Heusen store very close to the hotel, when I bough 2 nice shirts on sale for $10 each. This definitely boosted my mood, but I don't want to say it was the highlight of the trip, if only because that would be really sad. I also went to Wegmans for some organic produce for my fiance, texting her a picture of a nice watermelon. Again, I was feeling better. It's the simple things, right? Right? Please say yes so I can maintain my dignity.
The mental break afforded by my excursion allowed some thoughts to bubble up from my subconscious. The Excelsior presentations were difficult to process, due to near-complete lack of new information or clarity, but there was more I didn't notice. Our presenter was lauded as an expert at her job, and I'm sure she was, but not anymore. Then I realized that she didn't have more guidance because she had none to give. She was only a little better informed than we were. How was such a thing possible? Because she was shut-out of the process in the beginning, and remained excluded to this day. There was no attempt to fix this unwieldy mess, because the legislators didn't care. They got positive press in the beginning, and that was it. The Part-Time Scholarship, though less ambitious, was riddled with the same structural problems as Excelsior. The $1500 wouldn't pay for very much, and Excelsior was essentially a mirage. So what was the end game? I finally understood as I loaded my cart with organic spinach and a box of pumpkin pie K-cups left over from Thanksgiving: there is no end game. Last year it was Excelsior; this year gave us PTS, and next year it will be something else. Until Albany finds the sweet spot of sustained accolades from progressives and the media without spending any real money, financial aid will continue to deal with these half-baked plans. Eventually, politicians will find some other aspect of the economy with which to establish their progressive bonafides, and I can go back to actually helping people.
In the weeks between the conference and today, someone at work asked me for an update on Excelsior. I, fully tenured and having no filter between my brain and my mouth, said it was a disaster from top to bottom. This response was not popular with those in charge, but I did get a fully chuckle from at least one person. Whether he was laughing at the line or my delivery, I can't say.
At its heart, Excelsior represents government at it worst. Politicians, hungry for sound bites and looking at higher office, take what is ostensibly a good idea: free college, free healthcare, easy mortgages so people with bad credit can buy houses, etc., and a slap together laws without any thought as to the process involved or potential consequences, all without spending any real money. This mindset is not limited to New York; the Federal government bequeathed financial aid the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), which gave us hours of work for an extra $375 a semester, and a program for vets, which I can only call unemployment for vets, forcing them to take a full time course load in a two year program they'd never earn. Not a single recipient actually finished his degree, but he did get $800 a month for 18 months. This was at the height of the Great Recession. As bad as these programs were, they were at least temporary, as both were limited under the statues that created them and not renewed. Excelsior will limp along until it is politically safe to end it, which may be never. Until then, I will sit at my desk, reviewing students, giving money, taking money back, and wondering how I got into this mess in the first place.
One year ago I found myself traveling to Corning NY, for the SUNYFAP annual convention with my director, and the post on the trip can be found here. I went this year as well, although the circumstances were a little different: our director retires at the end of May 2018, so I went with my fellow counselor Chris, who will be the acting director until we hire a new one. I had to go, since Excelsior was the main topic, just as it was last year, along with a new wrinkle: Part Time Scholarship (PTS), applicable only to community colleges, and just as contradictory, opaque, and stress-inducing as Excelsior. It's small in size, but so are blue-ringed octopuses, and I prefer to avoid both.
The biggest change from last year to this one was not this new program, though I know I'll hate it and it will give me even more busywork, but that Excelsior is now a year old, so I was looking for direct, clear answers to questions we've been asking since day one. This was my mission, and it's one for which I'm uniquely suited. Talking to people and finding out information they'd rather not reveal is one of my specialties, so if anyone in the office can gain clarity, I would be that person.
In a perfect world, I wouldn't have need to go to the convention with this specific a goal in mind. SUNYFAP used to be a chance to network with your fellow financial professionals, search for new jobs, and have lenders and services take you out to dinner. New ethics rules and the Great Recession took care of all that, though I did get a nice coffee cup:
(For some reason the pic is banned because it's a possible alcoholic beverage. It's a freaking coffee cup! Anyway, on with the show...)
Cute, but I'm not sure it's possible. Couldn't it say that I make financial aid tolerable, or something less than torture? Anyway, you always learned new things at the conference, but they were general in nature and it was never necessary to go to learn about specific programs; we would have had training seminars locally, webinars, etc. Last year was supposed to be the exception; since Excelsior appeared out of nowhere and as the event was only a week later, that would have been the first training available anyway.
So why was it so important that I attend this year? Because the Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC), still hasn't really given schools any real clarity or official, written guidance, and we've been clamoring for both all year. This is not to say we're not getting any information at all; I have the coordinator on speed dial and we're on a first name basis. Still, in the nearly 20 years I've been a financial aid counselor, there has never been a program, on any level, that didn't come with specific, official rules in a guidebook when the aid type was introduced. Excelsior was slapped together over a weekend (seriously), and without any input from people in financial aid (seriously part 2), so HESC not having all it's paperwork together was excusable - a year ago. It's far less understandable today, and that uncertainty caused a sense of existential worry I couldn't quite place, something gnawing in my subconscious. I'd figure it out, but not until end of the trip.
Excelsior and the new scholarship were not the only topics covered, and I had a few presentations to watch before the main events. The first subject was Cross-Registration, an interesting policy that attempts to codify and digitize taking classes between SUNY campuses. Truthfully, cross registration has very little to do with financial aid; it's almost all admissions and academic advising, but there's money involved, so we're usually the first office called. We aren't the first state system to standardize this process; Florida and California have had policies in place for years. Because New York's system is older, and therefore more fragmented in a way FL's and CA's are not, our new system is a little different. Pre-approving classes for transfer between state schools used to be a paper intensive process, but now everything is online. It's not perfect, and there's still some confusion as to who can be charged what and why, but I actually like what SUNY did here. If we are changing our focus from providing opportunity to ensuring completion, this was a needed step. However, there's a loophole the size of the Holland Tunnel: schools can always say no to allowing a class to be taken at a different school. For example, SUNY Buffalo, rightly known for its engineering programs, will not allow a student to take Physics 404 at another college, even another SUNY. This specific example happened to a close friend of mine, and he remarked that the final exam at the other state school was the first chapter at Buffalo, so the exclusion was justified. With this, the schools maintain their academic independence, and for Buffalo, Binghamton, Albany, and Stony Brook, I understand. A community college having a blanket policy denying all applications if it offers the class itself? That's less excusable.
Another session worthy of my time was the general HESC update. This was not meant to cover individual programs, so this wasn't why I came, but it would prove interesting nonetheless. When a student applies for financial aid, he or she has to use tax forms from a specific year. Fall 2018 uses 2016's tax returns, as an example. If this is no longer representative of the household income, then there was a mechanism in place to review the circumstances. Give me a letter explaining the situation, and documentation as needed, and I may be able to lower your income. This only worked for federal aid (Pell), and if my calculations didn't get the students any free money, it wasn't worth the paperwork. Private schools do this much more often, since they give away their money as scholarships (really discounts on tuition).
HESC's aid programs had no such mechanism, until now. If the family had a divorce, legal separation, or a death in the family in the up to two years before the application period, then the student can now apply for an income adjustment. When I said the word now, I mean one week prior to my typing this sentence. The process and formula used are needlessly complicated, which is unsurprising considering this is New York State, but the good news is that I have nothing to do with it save awarding aid at HESC's direction. You apply online, send in your proof, and they crunch some numbers. It won't help that many people, but it could increase the number of Excelsior approvals. It could also have some unintended consequences. Legal separations can be done easily and undone just as quickly. Could families catch on and try to get more aid that way? It's possible, and if HESC doesn't ask for too much paperwork, it might work - in theory. It will depend on how much documentation HESC requires: proof of separate domiciles, utility bills, etc.
The other sessions on Wednesday were the standard boilerplate updates, and none had any real surprises or impact, so they aren't worth cataloging here. Once our afternoon sessions ended, we were on our own for dinner, and I was happy to eat some BBQ on Market street with my fellow WCC attendee. We talked mostly about the changes that were taking place at the school, with our director retiring and his taking over until a new boss is hired. If you told me in 2001 that I'd be the most senior counselor and he would be in charge, I'd have laughed out loud. Nevertheless, here we are, and I'm... worried. Oh well, at least I'll get plenty of overtime from now until October.
Thursday started with a breakfast buffet, multiple cups of coffee, and a little hope that the sessions about Excelsior and the PTS would make my job easier. These presentations would also be live-streamed and recorded, so my boss could watch with me. I warned her that my snark would be on full blast, but she didn't seem to mind.
The first presentation was nothing but a repeat of a webinar that my director and I watched a few months ago. It detailed the worst kind of bureaucratic busywork: the colleges receive form X-1234 and the schools send back form 1234-X, both as Excel spreadsheets. First, I already knew all this from the webinar; second, I don't I have any control over the electronic comings and goings of data, so this was irrelevant. Even worse, the person giving the presentation was the same monotone presenter from the webinar, and as she spoke my director and I were sending panicked text messages back and forth. I sat through it anyway, hoping for a kernel or two of new information. We didn't get any, and at this session, we weren't allowed to ask questions either.
The rebuttal to my angst is that not everyone watched the seminar the first time, so they needed this info. That's fair, in that some people may been recently given Excelsior as part of their jobs, but for the rest of us, it was a waste of time. At minimum, the session should have included some new information. Otherwise we could have watched the seminar in the comfort of our offices, and avoided the late snow squalls hitting the Finger Lakes and the Twin Tiers all week. Did I mention the weather was unusually cold and snowy? No? Well, I just did. I certainly wasn't getting 26,000 steps in a day this year.
The second seminar started off with a similar recap: who qualified, how much money the family could make, etc. However, there was some new information, and we would be able to ask questions. I had a series of questions prepared, naturally, courtesy of me and my boss prepping for the trip. Effective administration of a financial aid program is a negotiation between the rules, the regulations springing from those rules, and exceptions. To allow a functioning system to be created, governing principles must be created and explained. These guidelines allow us to decide what takes priority when a contradiction occurs or a situation pops up that isn't covered in the regulations. As Excelsior had no financial aid input in its final form, it is filled with contradictions that a non-profession wouldn't know existed. Absent these written rules, nor any guiding principles, our questions were the first real opportunity to force HESC to give answers on the record. With that I asked my questions. The responses were not only lacking but in one case, outright wrong.
One of those bedrock principles of financial aid is that you have to attend class for a certain period of time, and if you don't, your aid is either deleted or reduced. You aren't considered full time, because you didn't legitimately attempt full time studies. The worst (best?) part is that the student is still charged full time tuition. Since the professors don't report attendance until three or four weeks into the semester, registration would be closed at that point. As I tell students, you broke it; you bought it.
Both state and federal aid followed this line of thinking for as long as I've known, at least until Excelsior. Technically, it isn't financial aid anyway - it's a scholarship, but I feel we're splitting hairs. When the law was written, lawmakers used the term liability, so when a student incurs the full charge for full time classes, he or she receives Excelsior, regardless of attendance. However, if the student drops the class during the first few weeks of the term, the tuition charge wouldn't be fully charged, so the student would lose Excelsior. Does this mean they wanted students to blow off class but still remain registered? Probably not, but that's what happened. On the other hand, the law also states that the student must attempt full time study, which should mean you need to actually go to class. As per HESC, they didn't realize this was a problem until I pointed it out to HESC some 4 months ago by comparing the rules for Excelsior to TAP and how the aid programs have the similar language but aren't in sync. They said they would look into the contradiction, but for now, pay the student and they would get back to us.
We didn't hear back, so there I sat with the above scenario as one of my questions. I could have peppered her all day, given the opportunity. Mostly I'd have screamed why between inconsolable wails, but such Gestalt would have to wait. I asked my question, again pointing out the contradiction between TAP and Excelsior, and she told us that was had to pay students for both programs regardless of attendance. Our silence was deafening, then all the air was sucked out of the room.
After the initial shock, I and every other counselor in the room gasped at what she said. Either she was incorrect, or we have all been processing state aid incorrectly for at least 20 years. My boss sent me a text, asking if she heard correctly. I confirmed that she did, including the cries of disbelief. It's certainly possible that she could have made a mistake, but why were we so shocked? Because the presenter was the person in charge of all New York State aid. Whatever questions I had after that became irrelevant. I couldn't trust her answers, or I couldn't trust my own knowledge. On a certain level, I felt bad for her. I'm sure she's excellent at what her job demanded 18 months ago. The first Excelsior presentation detailing various spreadsheet types was much better. Then again, it was also a repeat.
While I was shocked to the point of defeat, others still had some fight. The questions came fast, and she did her best to keep up. I cannot say she actually tried to answer them. I could go back and listen to the recordings, but I'm not a masochist to the degree needed. One of the more pointed queries was when were getting the mythical regulations on paper with real guidance. She didn't know, and at that point I gave up.
The PTS session was next, and although I didn't want to attend, I sat through it. As expected, it was another publicity stunt with no real impact. Thankfully, the application is processed entirely by HESC, and the award is small: $1500 for the year. However, this ward can be back-dated to Fall 2017, which could pose problems with over-awards. At worst, it might be 1 or 2 students, but it was the principle We have yet to get a roster, so I'm not sure anyone even applied for it. The scholarship has no specific income criterion and only a small pool of money from which to draw, so not everyone would be approved. We were told that awards would go to the most needy based on income, but anyone can apply. I'm sure I'll have some explaining to do in the future and I'm not happy at the arbitrary method of handing out the money, but of all the ways this program could have gone, this was fairly benign.
There was another session between PTS and dinner, but I had no desire to attend it. It wasn't that important anyway, so went to my room, thought about what had transpired, and moped. I eventually mustered enough ambition to walk to a Van Heusen store very close to the hotel, when I bough 2 nice shirts on sale for $10 each. This definitely boosted my mood, but I don't want to say it was the highlight of the trip, if only because that would be really sad. I also went to Wegmans for some organic produce for my fiance, texting her a picture of a nice watermelon. Again, I was feeling better. It's the simple things, right? Right? Please say yes so I can maintain my dignity.
The mental break afforded by my excursion allowed some thoughts to bubble up from my subconscious. The Excelsior presentations were difficult to process, due to near-complete lack of new information or clarity, but there was more I didn't notice. Our presenter was lauded as an expert at her job, and I'm sure she was, but not anymore. Then I realized that she didn't have more guidance because she had none to give. She was only a little better informed than we were. How was such a thing possible? Because she was shut-out of the process in the beginning, and remained excluded to this day. There was no attempt to fix this unwieldy mess, because the legislators didn't care. They got positive press in the beginning, and that was it. The Part-Time Scholarship, though less ambitious, was riddled with the same structural problems as Excelsior. The $1500 wouldn't pay for very much, and Excelsior was essentially a mirage. So what was the end game? I finally understood as I loaded my cart with organic spinach and a box of pumpkin pie K-cups left over from Thanksgiving: there is no end game. Last year it was Excelsior; this year gave us PTS, and next year it will be something else. Until Albany finds the sweet spot of sustained accolades from progressives and the media without spending any real money, financial aid will continue to deal with these half-baked plans. Eventually, politicians will find some other aspect of the economy with which to establish their progressive bonafides, and I can go back to actually helping people.
In the weeks between the conference and today, someone at work asked me for an update on Excelsior. I, fully tenured and having no filter between my brain and my mouth, said it was a disaster from top to bottom. This response was not popular with those in charge, but I did get a fully chuckle from at least one person. Whether he was laughing at the line or my delivery, I can't say.
At its heart, Excelsior represents government at it worst. Politicians, hungry for sound bites and looking at higher office, take what is ostensibly a good idea: free college, free healthcare, easy mortgages so people with bad credit can buy houses, etc., and a slap together laws without any thought as to the process involved or potential consequences, all without spending any real money. This mindset is not limited to New York; the Federal government bequeathed financial aid the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), which gave us hours of work for an extra $375 a semester, and a program for vets, which I can only call unemployment for vets, forcing them to take a full time course load in a two year program they'd never earn. Not a single recipient actually finished his degree, but he did get $800 a month for 18 months. This was at the height of the Great Recession. As bad as these programs were, they were at least temporary, as both were limited under the statues that created them and not renewed. Excelsior will limp along until it is politically safe to end it, which may be never. Until then, I will sit at my desk, reviewing students, giving money, taking money back, and wondering how I got into this mess in the first place.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The State of Financial Aid Part 2, or...
I'm no longer in a New York State of mind...
\Please read Part 1 here.
With the Federal Government out of the way, it's time to review my predictions for New York State, and not coincidentally, cover the mischief Albany is up to now. Now, New York has done other things besides Excelsior, but it's by far my biggest headache, so it get the most attention. I've written about the program extensively since its advent in 2017, but I've only made two predictions. I'm glad that's the case, since I could never have foreseen some of the nonsense Albany would invent. Sparing the reader from having to review everything I wrote, I predicted that Excelsior would set us back 3-5 years in our efforts to automate financial aid, and that Albany would soak in the applause, take a bow, then move on to some other economic programs with which to virtue signal, leaving the program a broken, confusing mess. While both were right in spirit, I was wrong in the specifics. For example, if I had just said that Albany would move on to other progressive causes without ever fixing Excelsior, I would have been 100% correct. What did I predict was more economic programs, and that expressly did not happen.
The lack of new spending programs is a fascinating example of the limitations of local and state government. I wrote in a prior post the New York is effectively 2 states: the milieu of New York City, and everything else. It's not quite a red and blue split, but more like a deep blue versus purple split. Upstate is much more socially conservative than the city, but is equally dependent on government spending, with little employment outside of the SUNY system and prisons. This gave the state two distinct cultures, and the separation was maintained by a quirk in Albany's structure: The governor could flip between parties, but the Democrats had the Assembly locked up for decades, while Republicans had a majority in the State Senate. This meant to matter what the liberals in NYC wanted to do, they were stymied by the Upper Chamber. However, the GOP's hold on the Senate was tenuous at best, and riding a wave of anti-Trump momentum, the Democrats not only took the Senate, they took it by a huge margin. This means that progressives have carte blanche to do whatever they want, and in some ways, they have used the opportunity: bail reform is a good example, along with gun control, and there's even the possibility of New York State legalizing prostitution. Still. this new progressive wave has not been extended to financial aid.
So why has Excelsior remained so limited, confusing, and punitive when fixing it would require very little political capital? Because unlike the societal changes above, fixing Excelsior would also require financial capital, something New York does not have. As I have told anyone who will listen (and more than a few who won't), some of the biggest problems with the program are written in the statue, so fixing those flaws would require lawmakers to change them. It hasn't happened, and there isn't even the discussion about easing the academic requirements, which are onerous to the point people aren't signing up for the program. All HESC can do is tweak the system, but even the small changes that are occurring have only made the program worse. Until recently, one of the requirements is that if you transfer, you still have to be making sufficient progress towards your degree. If you went to Albany for a year, but decided to come back to Westchester, you needed to transfer 30 credits back to my school. This was a huge problem for those who wanted to change their major or those who got D's, as they don't transfer. They counted towards keeping Excelsior, but only at the college where the poor grades were earned. You were stuck. Now that may no longer be the case, but would that be an improvement? I say no.
Using the above example, let's say you went to SUNY Albany to study Political Science as a pre-law major, saw how Albany worked and was so sickened you had to leave (a laudable reaction) then wanted to study medicine. You may not have all 30 credits transfer, so even if you were an honor student, you lose the scholarship going forward and you had to repay what was already given to you. HESC recently said that policy has changed. You could transfer 24 credits, and I would have to package you with the hope you'd be back on track by earning 36 credits in your sophomore year. This sounds good, but it isn't. It assumes the student actually earned 30 credits, but not all of the credits transfered. What happens if the student didn't actually earn the 30 credits? I wouldn't know either way, as I don't have access to the transcripts. I have to package the aid until I know you can't earn the 30 credits in the year, which could be the end of August. What happens is that the student gets decertified well after the fact, and I don't know how HESC is supposed to contact me to take away the money the student was already awarded, and I will then have to answer to the student, parents, the Bursar's office, etc. Best of all, this change in policy was supposed to be retroactive to 18/19, and I have no way of knowing who should have gotten the money and who shouldn't. After much protesting, and us describing real life examples like this one, the change is on hold, thankfully. If it did go through, the work would increase exponentially. This dovetails nicely with my prediction on Excelsior and automation.
The scholarship will resist automation so long as it exists, as my staying until 11pm last Thursday night demonstrates, but it hasn't really affected the office's overall efforts, only mine. This means I really need to examine my processes for Excelsior, but aside from seeing a few more panicked and annoying students, no one else is really impacted. One year from now or five, technology will continue to take over college advising, and with the change to the FAFSA examined in part 1, a good portion of our work may disappear. It's possible that Excelsior will become so large or unwieldy that the other counselors will absorb the scholarship for their students, but until then, I'll fall back on a conversation I had with my boss when we first learned about the program: Excelsior replaced the VA benefits for me, and this would have happened even if I didn't go to the 2017 SUNYFAP conference. The similarities are striking: both programs require endlessly repeated work, and I'm forever checking grades, attendance, certifying and decertifying for multiple semesters, etc. The main difference is that most veterans already knew the system had flaws when they came into my office, while most middle class families look at me like I work a McDonald's drive through. The best part is that we have maybe 120 students a year getting the award this year, and that's been stable since 2017. It's much ado about almost nothing.
Realpolitik in New York dictates that nothing is going to get better until outside forces require change. Even if the Republicans take back the NY State Senate, that doesn't mean policies will be reversed. Knowing that, I also know Excelsior will not get fixed any time soon, one way or the other. It won't become the program it claims to be, since the Albany doesn't have the money, and no one is willing to incur the wrath of Gov. Cuomo to end it. When he's out of office, I'll reevaluate the situation. The counterpoint to all I've said is that for some students and families, the program is a Godsend. If you keep your grades up, don't change what you want to study, or take extra classes to compensate for the change, and have no bad luck or bad teachers, then you benefit greatly from the program. I will never believe this small pool of students makes up for all the misinformation, hype, and workload associated with Excelsior, but the opportunity for students is there for the taking.
If I'm right that changing the FAFSA will cut into our workload, then I suppose I should be grateful that Excelsior exists, with all its contradictions, flaws, severe academic requirements, and ongoing changes for the worse. It certainly keeps me busy, and I understand the program as anyone in Westchester. That's a horrible attitude, looking for reasons to justify my employment rather than saying that I have a career, that I help people, and my contribution is valuable. Is the worst case scenario true, that I'm limping to retirement, with no hope of forward momentum or profession fulfillment? Of course it fucking does! What else have I been saying all these years? Still, my outlook is much darker than it has ever been. This leads us to part three: the college.
\Please read Part 1 here.
With the Federal Government out of the way, it's time to review my predictions for New York State, and not coincidentally, cover the mischief Albany is up to now. Now, New York has done other things besides Excelsior, but it's by far my biggest headache, so it get the most attention. I've written about the program extensively since its advent in 2017, but I've only made two predictions. I'm glad that's the case, since I could never have foreseen some of the nonsense Albany would invent. Sparing the reader from having to review everything I wrote, I predicted that Excelsior would set us back 3-5 years in our efforts to automate financial aid, and that Albany would soak in the applause, take a bow, then move on to some other economic programs with which to virtue signal, leaving the program a broken, confusing mess. While both were right in spirit, I was wrong in the specifics. For example, if I had just said that Albany would move on to other progressive causes without ever fixing Excelsior, I would have been 100% correct. What did I predict was more economic programs, and that expressly did not happen.
The lack of new spending programs is a fascinating example of the limitations of local and state government. I wrote in a prior post the New York is effectively 2 states: the milieu of New York City, and everything else. It's not quite a red and blue split, but more like a deep blue versus purple split. Upstate is much more socially conservative than the city, but is equally dependent on government spending, with little employment outside of the SUNY system and prisons. This gave the state two distinct cultures, and the separation was maintained by a quirk in Albany's structure: The governor could flip between parties, but the Democrats had the Assembly locked up for decades, while Republicans had a majority in the State Senate. This meant to matter what the liberals in NYC wanted to do, they were stymied by the Upper Chamber. However, the GOP's hold on the Senate was tenuous at best, and riding a wave of anti-Trump momentum, the Democrats not only took the Senate, they took it by a huge margin. This means that progressives have carte blanche to do whatever they want, and in some ways, they have used the opportunity: bail reform is a good example, along with gun control, and there's even the possibility of New York State legalizing prostitution. Still. this new progressive wave has not been extended to financial aid.
So why has Excelsior remained so limited, confusing, and punitive when fixing it would require very little political capital? Because unlike the societal changes above, fixing Excelsior would also require financial capital, something New York does not have. As I have told anyone who will listen (and more than a few who won't), some of the biggest problems with the program are written in the statue, so fixing those flaws would require lawmakers to change them. It hasn't happened, and there isn't even the discussion about easing the academic requirements, which are onerous to the point people aren't signing up for the program. All HESC can do is tweak the system, but even the small changes that are occurring have only made the program worse. Until recently, one of the requirements is that if you transfer, you still have to be making sufficient progress towards your degree. If you went to Albany for a year, but decided to come back to Westchester, you needed to transfer 30 credits back to my school. This was a huge problem for those who wanted to change their major or those who got D's, as they don't transfer. They counted towards keeping Excelsior, but only at the college where the poor grades were earned. You were stuck. Now that may no longer be the case, but would that be an improvement? I say no.
Using the above example, let's say you went to SUNY Albany to study Political Science as a pre-law major, saw how Albany worked and was so sickened you had to leave (a laudable reaction) then wanted to study medicine. You may not have all 30 credits transfer, so even if you were an honor student, you lose the scholarship going forward and you had to repay what was already given to you. HESC recently said that policy has changed. You could transfer 24 credits, and I would have to package you with the hope you'd be back on track by earning 36 credits in your sophomore year. This sounds good, but it isn't. It assumes the student actually earned 30 credits, but not all of the credits transfered. What happens if the student didn't actually earn the 30 credits? I wouldn't know either way, as I don't have access to the transcripts. I have to package the aid until I know you can't earn the 30 credits in the year, which could be the end of August. What happens is that the student gets decertified well after the fact, and I don't know how HESC is supposed to contact me to take away the money the student was already awarded, and I will then have to answer to the student, parents, the Bursar's office, etc. Best of all, this change in policy was supposed to be retroactive to 18/19, and I have no way of knowing who should have gotten the money and who shouldn't. After much protesting, and us describing real life examples like this one, the change is on hold, thankfully. If it did go through, the work would increase exponentially. This dovetails nicely with my prediction on Excelsior and automation.
The scholarship will resist automation so long as it exists, as my staying until 11pm last Thursday night demonstrates, but it hasn't really affected the office's overall efforts, only mine. This means I really need to examine my processes for Excelsior, but aside from seeing a few more panicked and annoying students, no one else is really impacted. One year from now or five, technology will continue to take over college advising, and with the change to the FAFSA examined in part 1, a good portion of our work may disappear. It's possible that Excelsior will become so large or unwieldy that the other counselors will absorb the scholarship for their students, but until then, I'll fall back on a conversation I had with my boss when we first learned about the program: Excelsior replaced the VA benefits for me, and this would have happened even if I didn't go to the 2017 SUNYFAP conference. The similarities are striking: both programs require endlessly repeated work, and I'm forever checking grades, attendance, certifying and decertifying for multiple semesters, etc. The main difference is that most veterans already knew the system had flaws when they came into my office, while most middle class families look at me like I work a McDonald's drive through. The best part is that we have maybe 120 students a year getting the award this year, and that's been stable since 2017. It's much ado about almost nothing.
Realpolitik in New York dictates that nothing is going to get better until outside forces require change. Even if the Republicans take back the NY State Senate, that doesn't mean policies will be reversed. Knowing that, I also know Excelsior will not get fixed any time soon, one way or the other. It won't become the program it claims to be, since the Albany doesn't have the money, and no one is willing to incur the wrath of Gov. Cuomo to end it. When he's out of office, I'll reevaluate the situation. The counterpoint to all I've said is that for some students and families, the program is a Godsend. If you keep your grades up, don't change what you want to study, or take extra classes to compensate for the change, and have no bad luck or bad teachers, then you benefit greatly from the program. I will never believe this small pool of students makes up for all the misinformation, hype, and workload associated with Excelsior, but the opportunity for students is there for the taking.
If I'm right that changing the FAFSA will cut into our workload, then I suppose I should be grateful that Excelsior exists, with all its contradictions, flaws, severe academic requirements, and ongoing changes for the worse. It certainly keeps me busy, and I understand the program as anyone in Westchester. That's a horrible attitude, looking for reasons to justify my employment rather than saying that I have a career, that I help people, and my contribution is valuable. Is the worst case scenario true, that I'm limping to retirement, with no hope of forward momentum or profession fulfillment? Of course it fucking does! What else have I been saying all these years? Still, my outlook is much darker than it has ever been. This leads us to part three: the college.
Friday, September 03, 2021
Is this it Part 1, or...
Excelsior, a retrospective...
Although I have multiple drafts on multiple topics sitting in my files, I just can't seem to finish one. Some are too dark; some are too personal; one is both, and one is just fucking pointless. The depression we've all suffered during this pandemic has killed my creative drive as well as few other things. As society reopens and I can reengage with work, friends, and all the activities I used to enjoy and, if I'm being honest, took for granted, I feel more and more like my former self. There will be time to appraise what steps were taken to limit (or ignore) the spread of COVID, but it's too soon for an accurate appraisal. Also, I'm way too pissed.
No, if I'm to write a post, I want to look at my area of expertise: financial aid. Specifically, I wanted to examine the prospect of free community college as suggested in the proposed 2021 Federal budget. I've ruminated on this possibility before. The most recent attempt I've had to navigate is, of course, Excelsior, the bane (and savior) of my professional existence. The thoroughly snarky posts I wrote on the subject, when the program was first introduced, were, after 4 years of processing the award, absolutely correct. It is every bit the mess that I thought it would be, and it made me indispensable to the financial aid office. I am the expert I hoped I would be, even as I am always somewhat confused. It's a one-eyed man in the land of the blind scenario, but it helps me professionally, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
The core of my feelings about Excelsior are consistent with any financial aid program that New York State would create at this point: it's all a mirage designed primarily to look good rather than to do good. New York isn't trying to get it right or make it easy, because Albany cannot afford it. The correct approach would have been to take TAP, the standard NYS aid program, and give the maximum award to whomever already qualified, but that would have required much more money and generated far less positive press. My derision isn't entirely fair, of course. Students do initially benefit from Excelsior, and for those who manage to keep the program all 4 years, it's a Godsend. Politicians can rightfully point to that small subset and claim Excelsior is an incredible benefit. Managing to keep the money both academically and professionally is the crux of the problem, of course, and the vast majority do not, instead owing money to New York State, either because the student didn't finish, didn't finish on time, or had to move out of New York after college to find a job. You owe New York a year of living and working in the Empire State for every year you get the scholarship, and people often forget that after 4 years of school. I blame binge drinking. The bulk of these requirements mean more work for financial aid counselors, not less.
The other side to financial aid is the Federal government. There's plenty of bureaucracy, contradictions, and confusion to keep all of us busy, and some of that is by design. We have to report our students' progress, whether or not our students are working upon graduation, how much they earn, if they're working in their field of study, making certain they are attending class, etc. The common theme of all this reporting is that the government's money isn't being fraudulently obtained or wasted by either the schools or the students, and that we are delivering the promised educational value. New York isn't all that different, but the Federal info dumps are mostly automated at this point, while Albany's work is often manual, with Excelsior a prime example. Aside from efficiency, the main difference between Washington and NY programs is that the federal government can create money from thin air while a state cannot. If DC has the will to throw fake money at a problem, it will get tossed. How that money is disbursed is another matter.
Continued in part 2.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
It is the best of programs; it is the worst of programs, or....
Nice job breaking it, hero...
I was hoping to chronicle the SUNYFAP conference in the same way I wrote about Santiago and Cancun, but the news was so bad that I wasn't capable (willing?) to explore the topic beyond kvetching with my director, who was aghast as I was. Almost everything I learned was bad, though I did not learn everything. The regulations, far more important to financial aid than the law itself, won't be revealed until HESC has it's board of directors' meeting on May 26th. There is a glimmer of hope for some relief from the more onerous implications of the law, or at least others feel that way. I'm much more doubtful.
I'd like to try to avoid speculation and editorializing as much as possible, since we don't have much concrete information as to the regulations, but a few things do need to be said. Let's start with the good news: for the small handful of students who meet the income guidelines, and are motivated enough, smart enough, and disciplined enough to remain eligible, the program is a godsend - if they even get it - see below. Also, I conferred with my fellow financial aid professionals over dinner, and they agreed with my theory on the school choice possibilities as the probable legacy of the scholarship. All the rest of the news is bad.
First, the overselling of Excelsior and the amount of misinformation is staggering, giving students false hope, and making all our lives much more difficult. As mention in my prior post, there's only a narrow band of income where a student will get this money without getting financial aid anyway. Again, it only covers the tuition, not books or fees, so students will be on the hook for those expenses no matter what.
Second, it is not an entitlement, a word that has legal meaning in financial aid. Pell and TAP are considered entitlements, much like Social Security, food stamps, or welfare. If you meet the requirements, hand in any and all required documents, and relevant deadlines haven't passed for a particular time period, you are legally entitled to the money, period. Funds like SEOG and APTS are discretionary, and also limited by their respective appropriations. In addition to the requirements listed above, schools have guidelines for who gets what, and when the money runs out, there's no more, regardless of your income, academic standing, etc. Excelsior works the same way. In fact, there's only $81,000,000 (though I had heard $87,000,000 at the conference), budgeted for the first year. Assuming a full award ($5,500 with any extra tuition charges waived by the public colleges), that would mean only 14,727 students would be eligible. That's fewer students then presently attend my single community college. True, most awards will not be the full amount, but the number of potential students far outstrips the available money. To remedy this, HESC will have a lottery, with continuing students having better odds. Naturally, brand new students are the ones asking about Excelsior, not those presently enrolled. It's worth mentioning that there's some fine print in the law that hurts the schools financially. Students who get this award have their tuition frozen for four or two years, depending on the college, and around $1000 is actually not charged by the college as part of the policy. This doesn't hurt us, since our tuition is below $5,500, but other, smaller SUNY schools are panicked. It isn't that big of a deal in my opinion, since so few students will end up getting the aid anyway. By the way. if you lose the scholarship, your tuition goes up to whatever the normal price would have been, Can you say sticker shock?
Third, there's some confusion about this, but it seems that scholarships dedicated only to the paying of tuition must be used before Excelsior is available. More than any other requirement we discussed, this caused the most anger on behalf of the four-year colleges. They have foundations that award scholarships using private donations, and suddenly it's hurting the students because the way the monies are earmarked: they can only be used for tuition, preventing the student from getting Excelsior. They have agreements with donors, and cannot legally change the program, or something to that effect. I wasn't entirely clear on why it's a problem, only that this is a problem, and a big one at that. The schools may be really concerned about their fundraising. It may be fixed, or it may not be, but that does seem to be the policy right now.
Finally, but by no means the final word, the application isn't even available right now, and I'm not sure when it will become available. The Heathcare.gov debacle comes to mind, though on a smaller, more concentrated scale. Also, HESC will require presently enrolled students to send unofficial transcripts to them, and they'll determine whether or not the student meets the required academic progress for a funding source no one could have predicted would exist when the students registered and attempted the classes. Combine that with the fact students cannot even apply for it right now, and when will students be awarded for Fall of '17, February of 2018? March 2018? For the college, I suggested that anyone who wants this money would need a separate funding source - loans, which would be refunded after HESC paid the school. Our deadlines won't change, so unless HESC gets its shit together (ha!), loans or a payment plan will be required, my input notwithstanding.
As per one of the trainers from HESC, this program was designed to giveComrade First Secretary Gov. Andrew Cuomo a good soundbite and show that he could do what Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), promised: free college. Obviously, the truth is a little different, and I hope, with some justification, that it blows up in his face, derailing his 2020 presidential hopes. The worst part is that there was an easy, correct way to do what he wanted: give everyone maximum TAP making under the prescribed income limits. It's a first dollar program, so Pell remains with the student for books, supplies, etc., and all the needed infrastructure was already in place. It would have helped students en masse; everyone in financial aid already understood the program, and could have been implemented immediately. It would have cost more money, but with the administrative costs of the new program, who's to say it won't turn out to be around the same amount anyway? Alas, such a simple solution doesn't generate headlines and praise from progressives. It was painful to hear the HESC representatives agree with me.
This post is written only to skim the surface of the realities of this lunacy, and trust me; this will be a nightmare. There's plenty more I could have said, but some of those things get into the arcane workings of financial aid, and aren't relevant to the end reader. In other words, they're boring enough to put me to sleep, much less a layperson. Concerning facts I do consider important, as I confirm more, I'll blog more. As an example, I have't yet touched on what's required academically to keep the scholarship, since there's contradictory information right now, and that's amongst financial aid personnel. The bar will be very high, but I want the full picture. If you're reading this and believe I'm merely avoiding the topic because I want to now assume the fetal position under my desk and sob quietly, congrats, you're paying attention. For now, there's a long-delayed post that never seems to get written: what I want to do next and why it's been taking me so long to write the essay.
I was hoping to chronicle the SUNYFAP conference in the same way I wrote about Santiago and Cancun, but the news was so bad that I wasn't capable (willing?) to explore the topic beyond kvetching with my director, who was aghast as I was. Almost everything I learned was bad, though I did not learn everything. The regulations, far more important to financial aid than the law itself, won't be revealed until HESC has it's board of directors' meeting on May 26th. There is a glimmer of hope for some relief from the more onerous implications of the law, or at least others feel that way. I'm much more doubtful.
I'd like to try to avoid speculation and editorializing as much as possible, since we don't have much concrete information as to the regulations, but a few things do need to be said. Let's start with the good news: for the small handful of students who meet the income guidelines, and are motivated enough, smart enough, and disciplined enough to remain eligible, the program is a godsend - if they even get it - see below. Also, I conferred with my fellow financial aid professionals over dinner, and they agreed with my theory on the school choice possibilities as the probable legacy of the scholarship. All the rest of the news is bad.
First, the overselling of Excelsior and the amount of misinformation is staggering, giving students false hope, and making all our lives much more difficult. As mention in my prior post, there's only a narrow band of income where a student will get this money without getting financial aid anyway. Again, it only covers the tuition, not books or fees, so students will be on the hook for those expenses no matter what.
Second, it is not an entitlement, a word that has legal meaning in financial aid. Pell and TAP are considered entitlements, much like Social Security, food stamps, or welfare. If you meet the requirements, hand in any and all required documents, and relevant deadlines haven't passed for a particular time period, you are legally entitled to the money, period. Funds like SEOG and APTS are discretionary, and also limited by their respective appropriations. In addition to the requirements listed above, schools have guidelines for who gets what, and when the money runs out, there's no more, regardless of your income, academic standing, etc. Excelsior works the same way. In fact, there's only $81,000,000 (though I had heard $87,000,000 at the conference), budgeted for the first year. Assuming a full award ($5,500 with any extra tuition charges waived by the public colleges), that would mean only 14,727 students would be eligible. That's fewer students then presently attend my single community college. True, most awards will not be the full amount, but the number of potential students far outstrips the available money. To remedy this, HESC will have a lottery, with continuing students having better odds. Naturally, brand new students are the ones asking about Excelsior, not those presently enrolled. It's worth mentioning that there's some fine print in the law that hurts the schools financially. Students who get this award have their tuition frozen for four or two years, depending on the college, and around $1000 is actually not charged by the college as part of the policy. This doesn't hurt us, since our tuition is below $5,500, but other, smaller SUNY schools are panicked. It isn't that big of a deal in my opinion, since so few students will end up getting the aid anyway. By the way. if you lose the scholarship, your tuition goes up to whatever the normal price would have been, Can you say sticker shock?
Third, there's some confusion about this, but it seems that scholarships dedicated only to the paying of tuition must be used before Excelsior is available. More than any other requirement we discussed, this caused the most anger on behalf of the four-year colleges. They have foundations that award scholarships using private donations, and suddenly it's hurting the students because the way the monies are earmarked: they can only be used for tuition, preventing the student from getting Excelsior. They have agreements with donors, and cannot legally change the program, or something to that effect. I wasn't entirely clear on why it's a problem, only that this is a problem, and a big one at that. The schools may be really concerned about their fundraising. It may be fixed, or it may not be, but that does seem to be the policy right now.
Finally, but by no means the final word, the application isn't even available right now, and I'm not sure when it will become available. The Heathcare.gov debacle comes to mind, though on a smaller, more concentrated scale. Also, HESC will require presently enrolled students to send unofficial transcripts to them, and they'll determine whether or not the student meets the required academic progress for a funding source no one could have predicted would exist when the students registered and attempted the classes. Combine that with the fact students cannot even apply for it right now, and when will students be awarded for Fall of '17, February of 2018? March 2018? For the college, I suggested that anyone who wants this money would need a separate funding source - loans, which would be refunded after HESC paid the school. Our deadlines won't change, so unless HESC gets its shit together (ha!), loans or a payment plan will be required, my input notwithstanding.
As per one of the trainers from HESC, this program was designed to give
This post is written only to skim the surface of the realities of this lunacy, and trust me; this will be a nightmare. There's plenty more I could have said, but some of those things get into the arcane workings of financial aid, and aren't relevant to the end reader. In other words, they're boring enough to put me to sleep, much less a layperson. Concerning facts I do consider important, as I confirm more, I'll blog more. As an example, I have't yet touched on what's required academically to keep the scholarship, since there's contradictory information right now, and that's amongst financial aid personnel. The bar will be very high, but I want the full picture. If you're reading this and believe I'm merely avoiding the topic because I want to now assume the fetal position under my desk and sob quietly, congrats, you're paying attention. For now, there's a long-delayed post that never seems to get written: what I want to do next and why it's been taking me so long to write the essay.
Monday, November 20, 2017
The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, or...
'Round and 'round, 'round and 'round.
Blogging is a funny hobby, and by funny I mean strange. I could have a million ideas roaming around my mind, but unless I can come up with a good intro, I simply can't seem to write. Five months ago I had a killer tag line, but it was a time sensitive reference, so the hook isn't there anymore. I'm sure I'll use it in the future, but now it's time for an update 6 months in the making.
First, Excelsior was not the nightmare I expected it to be; it was actually a little worse. I knew it would be an unwieldy mess, but I was unprepared for the the day to day, nut and bolts of managing the program. It took the least appealing aspects of three different aid types: the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), now mercifully defunct, the GI Bill, and the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), New York's homegrown financial aid. ACG, another form of aid I was summarily assigned to manage, was a (very) little extra money for students in the first two years who were taking certain majors and classes. It has many different and arcane regulations, and not meeting any one criteria would prevent you from getting the money. It was a fixed $375 per semester, so it never made much difference, but the level of manual processing needed to research, package, and verify students made it feel like I was handing out full rides to Yale. The program died an ignominious death, and was not mourned. Excelsior has similarly involved requirements, only I have to keep checking from July to the end of September, and again throughout November, December, and January. Then I get to talk to students who lost their money, either for the new term, or for the term that just ended, meaning they owe the school money with few options for getting it in other (loans) ways, or never qualified in the first place.
This is an excellent segue to the next aid program on the list: the GI Bill, which I also managed as a solo endeavor until 2013, when I damn near quit due to the unmanageable workload. My threats were not idle in this case, and as prior blog posts detailed, I had any number of alternatives up my sleeve at the time. The college knew all this, and a new VA manager was hired. Anyway, the requirement to continuously re-examine the progress of students is not a facet of ACG, but of the GI Bill. Furthermore, neither TAP nor ACG requires me to take money away in most cases unless a student never attends a class, making him or her part time - I can't pay for classes you don't actually bother to show up for. Technically, I'm not taking away money, but I'm telling HESC not to pay it after the fact. This can occur many months later, since there are multiple targets a student must meet. I could have to take away money from a fall term 2017 in August of 2018, and that's not hyperbole. The same applies to the GI Bill, since an incomplete could turn into an "F" grade and I may then have to report attendance, or the lack thereof, and the student may have to pay back thousands (yes, $1,000's) of dollars. The stakes aren't quite as high, thankfully, but the sums aren't necessarily trivial, either.
So what happens if or when (when, the word is when...) a student's grades go sideways, or worse yet, when they do really well, but still don't earn enough credits to keep their money? Well, I tell HESC they don't qualify and we chase them for the money, or if it's really retroactive (say Fall's payment is suddenly due when I tell HESC 11 months later that the student shit the academic bed...? Yes, itcan will happen) then New York will bill the student. But you (okay, the student, or the student's parents, or both) protest: there's a really good reason! It's even possible they're telling the truth. What to do? Well, the student, and only the student, can appeal the situation to HESC. This is sort of telling an astronaut to fly into a black hole with the hope of exiting a white hole on the other side, but for now it's the only option. I always tell students the HESC wants to deal only with the student; the agency doesn't really want to speak with financial aid offices, and this is true. However, the students don't understand the system the way that I do, and are at a severe disadvantage. It sucks, but since this is HESC's default setting, I don't expect it to change any time soon.
More than anything, Excelsior did something to our office I didn't think was possible: it reversed the automation we've been trying so hard to integrate. I estimate it set us back anywhere from 3-5 years, as mentioned in a prior post, but I underestimated the level of student contact and paperwork the program would engender for the office as a whole, as so many people applied for financial aid who would never have done so in the past, and all of them had to examined, either by me for Excelsior, or another counselor based on the alphabet, or both. Naturally, the bulk of this work came as the same week the first payment was due.
So another boondoggle has been created, and the process went so horribly right. I'm busier than I've been in years, and the college is very happy with how I've handled the situation. I'm attending training, representing the college to civic organizations, and racking up plenty of overtime along the way. That's good news, since our office, in the intervening 2 months since I started this post, found out that our director is retiring, and we're all shocked and a little afraid. The college is a weird, and occasionally difficult place to work, and being in charge is even tougher. She's handled the situation beautifully, and she will be desperately missed. She saw the changes that I've been seeing, and since she's in a position to go, she's going. We have 6 months to figure out what's next, both as an office and as individuals. This is usually the place where I spout off about what scheme I'm cooking up as a segue to my next post, but I simply don't have the energy. There are bigger issues to examine, so it's time to put on my thinking cap and meditate on my next topic.
Blogging is a funny hobby, and by funny I mean strange. I could have a million ideas roaming around my mind, but unless I can come up with a good intro, I simply can't seem to write. Five months ago I had a killer tag line, but it was a time sensitive reference, so the hook isn't there anymore. I'm sure I'll use it in the future, but now it's time for an update 6 months in the making.
First, Excelsior was not the nightmare I expected it to be; it was actually a little worse. I knew it would be an unwieldy mess, but I was unprepared for the the day to day, nut and bolts of managing the program. It took the least appealing aspects of three different aid types: the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), now mercifully defunct, the GI Bill, and the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), New York's homegrown financial aid. ACG, another form of aid I was summarily assigned to manage, was a (very) little extra money for students in the first two years who were taking certain majors and classes. It has many different and arcane regulations, and not meeting any one criteria would prevent you from getting the money. It was a fixed $375 per semester, so it never made much difference, but the level of manual processing needed to research, package, and verify students made it feel like I was handing out full rides to Yale. The program died an ignominious death, and was not mourned. Excelsior has similarly involved requirements, only I have to keep checking from July to the end of September, and again throughout November, December, and January. Then I get to talk to students who lost their money, either for the new term, or for the term that just ended, meaning they owe the school money with few options for getting it in other (loans) ways, or never qualified in the first place.
This is an excellent segue to the next aid program on the list: the GI Bill, which I also managed as a solo endeavor until 2013, when I damn near quit due to the unmanageable workload. My threats were not idle in this case, and as prior blog posts detailed, I had any number of alternatives up my sleeve at the time. The college knew all this, and a new VA manager was hired. Anyway, the requirement to continuously re-examine the progress of students is not a facet of ACG, but of the GI Bill. Furthermore, neither TAP nor ACG requires me to take money away in most cases unless a student never attends a class, making him or her part time - I can't pay for classes you don't actually bother to show up for. Technically, I'm not taking away money, but I'm telling HESC not to pay it after the fact. This can occur many months later, since there are multiple targets a student must meet. I could have to take away money from a fall term 2017 in August of 2018, and that's not hyperbole. The same applies to the GI Bill, since an incomplete could turn into an "F" grade and I may then have to report attendance, or the lack thereof, and the student may have to pay back thousands (yes, $1,000's) of dollars. The stakes aren't quite as high, thankfully, but the sums aren't necessarily trivial, either.
So what happens if or when (when, the word is when...) a student's grades go sideways, or worse yet, when they do really well, but still don't earn enough credits to keep their money? Well, I tell HESC they don't qualify and we chase them for the money, or if it's really retroactive (say Fall's payment is suddenly due when I tell HESC 11 months later that the student shit the academic bed...? Yes, it
More than anything, Excelsior did something to our office I didn't think was possible: it reversed the automation we've been trying so hard to integrate. I estimate it set us back anywhere from 3-5 years, as mentioned in a prior post, but I underestimated the level of student contact and paperwork the program would engender for the office as a whole, as so many people applied for financial aid who would never have done so in the past, and all of them had to examined, either by me for Excelsior, or another counselor based on the alphabet, or both. Naturally, the bulk of this work came as the same week the first payment was due.
So another boondoggle has been created, and the process went so horribly right. I'm busier than I've been in years, and the college is very happy with how I've handled the situation. I'm attending training, representing the college to civic organizations, and racking up plenty of overtime along the way. That's good news, since our office, in the intervening 2 months since I started this post, found out that our director is retiring, and we're all shocked and a little afraid. The college is a weird, and occasionally difficult place to work, and being in charge is even tougher. She's handled the situation beautifully, and she will be desperately missed. She saw the changes that I've been seeing, and since she's in a position to go, she's going. We have 6 months to figure out what's next, both as an office and as individuals. This is usually the place where I spout off about what scheme I'm cooking up as a segue to my next post, but I simply don't have the energy. There are bigger issues to examine, so it's time to put on my thinking cap and meditate on my next topic.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Ask not for whom the Pell tolls...
It tolls for me.
Come August, I will have been a financial aid counselor for 19 years. I can't believe it's been that long, but my incredulity at surviving in this profession is minuscule compared to my blanching at the whipsaw politics of the day. One year ago I would never have believed Trump would be president, and I'm dumbstruck at Albany. When I'm done with this post, I'm getting canned goods.
There are lots of expensive goodies in the budget, and plenty of progressive aims fulfilled, but none are more relevant to me than the new policy of free SUNY and CUNY tuition, for families making less than $100,000 starting Fall of 2017, increasing to $110,000 in 2018, and stopping at $125,000 in Fall of 2019 - all figures are the federal adjusted gross income. Now, does this mean the end of financial aid as I know it? No. Certainly there will be some changes, and if I am interpreting the policies correctly, the free tuition will lower the student loan borrowing of our students - maybe However, our workload will increase overall, to a much greater degree than any relief we could expect from fewer student loans.
Programs such as this, whether it's termed financial aid, or tuition credit, or a scholarship (which is supposedly the case here, as the official name is the Excelsior Scholarship, but isn't quite the case, as I'll explain below), follow one of two models: first dollar or last dollar. First dollar means that, if you meet the criteria, the tuition (but not necessarily the fees, books, etc.) is paid, and any other aid you receive (Pell, SEOG, loans, school aid, etc.) can be used for other purposes. Last dollar is just the opposite: whatever aid you're awarded pays the bills, and whatever tuition isn't covered is then paid via the scholarship. This means that someone with an income around $50,000 would probably get just enough Pell and TAP to cover our tuition, but the fees, etc., would have to be paid out of pocket. The Excelsior voucher is a last dollar program, so everyone under the federal limit would need to apply for aid, be approved or denied (and a family of four making $95,000 wouldn't normally get anything besides loans, so not all families bother), then the new money would be available. As a result, a sizable portion of the student body, who would otherwise never be in my office, will be filing the FAFSA, applying for TAP, and financial aid would be required to process them: collecting tax forms, worksheets, green cards, etc. When I say our workload will explode, I mean it.
There are other requirements (for both students and financial aid) beyond the paperwork being processed. The academic requirements are quite stringent, and they are in addition to the regular TAP and Pell satisfactory academic progress (SAP) requirements. First, the student must be full time, a minimum of 12 credits per semester. However, the student must also complete (note: I didn't say earn) 30 credits per year, so I'm expecting our summer enrollment to go up as students play catch-up. Moreover, would that summer term be covered by anything other than loans? The TAP and Pell would be used up, and the Excelsior program says full time only. A certain GPA must be maintained as well. I'll guess that's a 2.0 or better, but I'm not sure. There's some flexibility built into the program, but don't ask me what the originators of the law mean by that. Also, TAP is reviewed academically every term. Will this follow suit? I am prepared for that to be the case. This could mean a significant increase in SAP appeals, on a semester to semester basis. It's a concern.
Also unclear is who will qualify for the program. The official statement uses the term families, not students, so does that mean a child considered a dependent for state purposes? Is there an age limit? Do you need to be taken as a dependent? I don't know. New York is especially eager to make students dependent, to the point that a 37 year old can be required to use parental tax returns if certain criteria are met. On the other hand, you could be independent at 22. Also, do parents with dependents qualify? Again, I'm not sure. Hopefully we'll get more guidance soon.
Finally, this money isn't really free; there are strings attached. For every year you get the aid, you are expected to live and work in New York. If you don't, your free money then becomes a student loan. Again, what does this mean? Who manages the loan? What is the interest rate? Does it count against lifetime loan limits? I have no clue. I'm not against this facet of the program, and the Smart Grant has a similar requirement and conversion policy.
There's a larger question as to New York's finances and whether or not this is sustainable. I doubt it, depending on what happens to Obamacare and New York's odd relationship with Medicaid. That is a topic for another time.
Come August, I will have been a financial aid counselor for 19 years. I can't believe it's been that long, but my incredulity at surviving in this profession is minuscule compared to my blanching at the whipsaw politics of the day. One year ago I would never have believed Trump would be president, and I'm dumbstruck at Albany. When I'm done with this post, I'm getting canned goods.
There are lots of expensive goodies in the budget, and plenty of progressive aims fulfilled, but none are more relevant to me than the new policy of free SUNY and CUNY tuition, for families making less than $100,000 starting Fall of 2017, increasing to $110,000 in 2018, and stopping at $125,000 in Fall of 2019 - all figures are the federal adjusted gross income. Now, does this mean the end of financial aid as I know it? No. Certainly there will be some changes, and if I am interpreting the policies correctly, the free tuition will lower the student loan borrowing of our students - maybe However, our workload will increase overall, to a much greater degree than any relief we could expect from fewer student loans.
Programs such as this, whether it's termed financial aid, or tuition credit, or a scholarship (which is supposedly the case here, as the official name is the Excelsior Scholarship, but isn't quite the case, as I'll explain below), follow one of two models: first dollar or last dollar. First dollar means that, if you meet the criteria, the tuition (but not necessarily the fees, books, etc.) is paid, and any other aid you receive (Pell, SEOG, loans, school aid, etc.) can be used for other purposes. Last dollar is just the opposite: whatever aid you're awarded pays the bills, and whatever tuition isn't covered is then paid via the scholarship. This means that someone with an income around $50,000 would probably get just enough Pell and TAP to cover our tuition, but the fees, etc., would have to be paid out of pocket. The Excelsior voucher is a last dollar program, so everyone under the federal limit would need to apply for aid, be approved or denied (and a family of four making $95,000 wouldn't normally get anything besides loans, so not all families bother), then the new money would be available. As a result, a sizable portion of the student body, who would otherwise never be in my office, will be filing the FAFSA, applying for TAP, and financial aid would be required to process them: collecting tax forms, worksheets, green cards, etc. When I say our workload will explode, I mean it.
There are other requirements (for both students and financial aid) beyond the paperwork being processed. The academic requirements are quite stringent, and they are in addition to the regular TAP and Pell satisfactory academic progress (SAP) requirements. First, the student must be full time, a minimum of 12 credits per semester. However, the student must also complete (note: I didn't say earn) 30 credits per year, so I'm expecting our summer enrollment to go up as students play catch-up. Moreover, would that summer term be covered by anything other than loans? The TAP and Pell would be used up, and the Excelsior program says full time only. A certain GPA must be maintained as well. I'll guess that's a 2.0 or better, but I'm not sure. There's some flexibility built into the program, but don't ask me what the originators of the law mean by that. Also, TAP is reviewed academically every term. Will this follow suit? I am prepared for that to be the case. This could mean a significant increase in SAP appeals, on a semester to semester basis. It's a concern.
Also unclear is who will qualify for the program. The official statement uses the term families, not students, so does that mean a child considered a dependent for state purposes? Is there an age limit? Do you need to be taken as a dependent? I don't know. New York is especially eager to make students dependent, to the point that a 37 year old can be required to use parental tax returns if certain criteria are met. On the other hand, you could be independent at 22. Also, do parents with dependents qualify? Again, I'm not sure. Hopefully we'll get more guidance soon.
Finally, this money isn't really free; there are strings attached. For every year you get the aid, you are expected to live and work in New York. If you don't, your free money then becomes a student loan. Again, what does this mean? Who manages the loan? What is the interest rate? Does it count against lifetime loan limits? I have no clue. I'm not against this facet of the program, and the Smart Grant has a similar requirement and conversion policy.
There's a larger question as to New York's finances and whether or not this is sustainable. I doubt it, depending on what happens to Obamacare and New York's odd relationship with Medicaid. That is a topic for another time.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Beware he who doth prostesteth too much, or...
Much ado about (mostly) nothing...
My prior post was not my finest work, such was the shock and existential dismay I felt after the creation of this policy. After rereading the post, I should be more aghast at the quality of writing, but sometimes you need to just slap something together and see what happens. I'm happy to say it worked; my creative juices are flowing again, and ideas for posts are popping into my head like dandelions on a lawn. That may not be the best simile I could have come up with, actually.
Thus, it is with unusual prescience (especially for me, who normally stumbles from one situation to the next like a drunken wildebeest) that I find myself in Corning, NY attending the 2017 State University of New York Financial Aid Professionals (SUNYFAP) annual conference. I asked to attend this shindig months ago, and was told yes, but the college said no a few weeks later due to budgetary constraints. Nevertheless, I offered to pay for the event myself; I just needed the time off. That was acceptable, so $260 and a few airline miles later, here I am. In between my registering and the start of the conference, the bomb was dropped on all of us, and I'm sure it will be the only thing we discuss. Blathering on about work life balance can wait.
Speaking of work life balance, and the implication we don't have it, the effect this new policy will have on me (and oh boy will it ever, to almost ridiculous levels) is certainly a valid topic for exploration, but for this essay, let's examine the Excelsior scholarship in greater detail, now that my head has cleared somewhat.
First, it needs to be stated that the effect is being oversold, but any new government program would be. As a last dollar form of aid, if a student qualifies for enough TAP and Pell to pay the tuition, then no extra money is available, even though there are plenty of other bills that need to be paid: fees, books, dorms, transportation, etc. As such, the notion that the SUNY, CUNY, and Community Colleges systems are suddenly free is nothing more than a fantasy There was also the intimation that a whole new group of student was going to be able to attend college where before they could not. This is utter nonsense; it is not going send a stampede of new students to college. There was always money available to pay for school; it was just in a form that people didn't want: loans. The access was always there, and anyone saying otherwise is either ill-informed, or outright lying.
Nevertheless, there are those that will benefit, but not quite in the way its being presented. Those families who make, say $90,000 a year, will get free tuition at a public institution, where before they got nothing. Aside from the other unpaid costs, this is a huge benefit. What the new money does (if the grades are there) is give the student and family the option of choice. If this was three years ago, no matter what the grades, if there wasn't enough savings for college, or insufficient borrowing capacity on behalf of the parents (not the student, who could always borrow some money, just not enough to pay for going away to college) this student was not going to whatever SUNY accepted him or her. Instead, our example was probably trundling over to my office in the middle of August, desperately trying to get a Stafford loan processed in time to pay for classes. Hopefully the paperwork was in order. If there is some savings, or the ability to borrow, in addition to the Excelsior scholarship, then going away to Binghamton, Buffalo, etc. is an option. Otherwise, you're coming into my office anyway, You might leave with less debt, but how much less debt is unknown.
The other aspect that has be more or less confirmed is that the academic requirements are very stringent, requiring the completion of 30 credits in one year, and if this isn't met, the aid is lost. Moreover, the GPA requirements are higher than other forms of state aid. Of course, I don't know how much higher. Could it be 2.0, checked every semester? Probably, but I don't know that either. The next three days will hopefully have the answers. I do know we'll be asking the questions, but are we asking the right ones? I don't know.
My prior post was not my finest work, such was the shock and existential dismay I felt after the creation of this policy. After rereading the post, I should be more aghast at the quality of writing, but sometimes you need to just slap something together and see what happens. I'm happy to say it worked; my creative juices are flowing again, and ideas for posts are popping into my head like dandelions on a lawn. That may not be the best simile I could have come up with, actually.
Thus, it is with unusual prescience (especially for me, who normally stumbles from one situation to the next like a drunken wildebeest) that I find myself in Corning, NY attending the 2017 State University of New York Financial Aid Professionals (SUNYFAP) annual conference. I asked to attend this shindig months ago, and was told yes, but the college said no a few weeks later due to budgetary constraints. Nevertheless, I offered to pay for the event myself; I just needed the time off. That was acceptable, so $260 and a few airline miles later, here I am. In between my registering and the start of the conference, the bomb was dropped on all of us, and I'm sure it will be the only thing we discuss. Blathering on about work life balance can wait.
Speaking of work life balance, and the implication we don't have it, the effect this new policy will have on me (and oh boy will it ever, to almost ridiculous levels) is certainly a valid topic for exploration, but for this essay, let's examine the Excelsior scholarship in greater detail, now that my head has cleared somewhat.
First, it needs to be stated that the effect is being oversold, but any new government program would be. As a last dollar form of aid, if a student qualifies for enough TAP and Pell to pay the tuition, then no extra money is available, even though there are plenty of other bills that need to be paid: fees, books, dorms, transportation, etc. As such, the notion that the SUNY, CUNY, and Community Colleges systems are suddenly free is nothing more than a fantasy There was also the intimation that a whole new group of student was going to be able to attend college where before they could not. This is utter nonsense; it is not going send a stampede of new students to college. There was always money available to pay for school; it was just in a form that people didn't want: loans. The access was always there, and anyone saying otherwise is either ill-informed, or outright lying.
Nevertheless, there are those that will benefit, but not quite in the way its being presented. Those families who make, say $90,000 a year, will get free tuition at a public institution, where before they got nothing. Aside from the other unpaid costs, this is a huge benefit. What the new money does (if the grades are there) is give the student and family the option of choice. If this was three years ago, no matter what the grades, if there wasn't enough savings for college, or insufficient borrowing capacity on behalf of the parents (not the student, who could always borrow some money, just not enough to pay for going away to college) this student was not going to whatever SUNY accepted him or her. Instead, our example was probably trundling over to my office in the middle of August, desperately trying to get a Stafford loan processed in time to pay for classes. Hopefully the paperwork was in order. If there is some savings, or the ability to borrow, in addition to the Excelsior scholarship, then going away to Binghamton, Buffalo, etc. is an option. Otherwise, you're coming into my office anyway, You might leave with less debt, but how much less debt is unknown.
The other aspect that has be more or less confirmed is that the academic requirements are very stringent, requiring the completion of 30 credits in one year, and if this isn't met, the aid is lost. Moreover, the GPA requirements are higher than other forms of state aid. Of course, I don't know how much higher. Could it be 2.0, checked every semester? Probably, but I don't know that either. The next three days will hopefully have the answers. I do know we'll be asking the questions, but are we asking the right ones? I don't know.
Sunday, July 07, 2019
Just back from vacation, or...
Summertime and the living (ain't) easy.
After a long flight, a nice relaxing time with Carolyn at her parents' place, and a long drive home, I'm sitting in front of my computer refreshed and ready to face whatever comes my way. I'm not even being sarcastic. The only caveat is that my summer has only a few weeks remaining: I leave for Pennsic in 3 weeks, and when I get back, all Hell breaks loose. It might still be 90 degrees and muggy out, but I won't notice besides trying to get steps on my lunch hour. I'll be in the office, in Ossining, or in tax class.
The vagaries of my calendar notwithstanding, I should note an odd sensation I had while driving home. The ride itself was detoured because of a severe accident on I-95 in Virginia around exit 118. The road was shut down for miles, and we were lucky to have Waze show us an alternative route. We would have been stuck in stand-still traffic for hours otherwise. We made it home with a sliver of twilight remaining, and that meant we had daylight all along the New Jersey Turnpike into New York. It was during that stretch I had the strangest sense of melancholy.
Before I left for North Carolina, Westchester and New York State were wrestling with the budget crisis partially created by the Trump Tax Plan, which I find delightful. The new law prevents property tax rates from being further increased, though the legal 2% (Ha!) increases will continue. Income taxes are similarly hamstrung, which is also a joy to watch. Nevertheless, something had to happen, but what? For the moment, the answer was to raise the County sales tax by 1%, from 3% to 4%, though the total sales tax is 8.375% from 7.375%, which I feel is an equitable solution, and a relatively painless one at that. Scott disagrees.
The difference between us is that I'm an end consumer, so I would pay an extra dollar for every $100. This would mean my car, which cost $8,500, would have a sales tax of $711.88 versus $624.75 . An extra $85.25 isn't nothing, but I'm not buying a new car every week. From a macro perspective, if my total spending is $40,000, I'd pay an extra $410 a year.
Oh the other side of this, Scott is a small business owner, so he has to cover the increased sales tax even if he's unable to raise his prices due to unrelenting competition. According to him, the increase will cost him $125 per month. I have no further context for his calculations, but he did say that he used to make $60,000 and pay $7,100 in taxes, circa 1985, and now he makes $30,000 after paying $18,850 in taxes. Again, I cannot check these numbers, but I'm sure it's more or less correct. This change, and the shift in politics across New York State have put a special onus on question I ask myself and Scott, along with a few other like-minded individuals: when has the breaking point been reached? When have we had enough to the point we're willing (or even forced) to leave our life here in New York and start a new chapter?
I haven't reached that point yet, whatever my feelings on Albany's stupidity, as all that I have both personally and professionally is tied to Westchester County and the policies of New York's financial aid. Simply put, I can't leave, at least not fully. Nevertheless, the day is coming, and it's soon. I'll be 49 at the end of the year, so the end is much nearer than my 401(k) would lead one to believe.
My discussions with Scott during my vacation via text, and his severe reaction to the tax increase, led me to contemplate my own timeline for getting out of the Northeast. Although his family is here, Scott can effectively leave tomorrow if he wanted. He hasn't given up on New York coming to its senses, which I find amusing as well as troubling. Things won't go back to the free market bonanza of the 80's, no matter how much he wishes. Our conversations on this topic has been ongoing since 1998, and I feel I might have made some headway a week ago. The talks are helpful, if only to sharpen my own thinking, enabling me to verbalize how bad I feel things are going to get. My exceptions are... not high.
All of this hit me as we were at the north end of the New Jersey Turnpike. I knew that the Manhattan skyline would be to my right, and I couldn't wait to see the spires of the city I love to call home. They view, obscured by low clouds and summer's humidity was an amazing sight. It reminded me how close I was to my home, and I couldn't wait to get back to Westchester to sleep in my bed, see my friends, and walk my familiar streets, doggies in tow. I say all this even as I had a great time in North Carolina.
My excitement was interrupted, if only for a moment, by the melancholy I mentioned above. Just as I knew that would be home soon, I also knew that one day soon I'd be leaving. This isn't news; it's been a theme of this blog since October 2005. No, what was different was that I keenly understood how much I'll miss it. I love living here in Westchester, and I never felt that as strongly until that moment. I built a life here, filled with love and laughter, victories and failures, along with strife, drama and loss. Whatever I create elsewhere, it won't match what I had here, and I can't expect it to. I also understood at that moment that I was going to leave. The destination is unknown, but it's out there, waiting for me to take the next step.
That next step will have to wait. Financial aid requires my attention tomorrow, as does Ossining's open house tomorrow night. I'll busy myself with Excelsior, folders, and pleas from students who forgot that class attendance isn't optional. I may find myself sneaking a peak at potential rental properties in Florida, or trying to register for the H&R Block tax course. I hope to keep this feeling as I drive down 9A tomorrow, instead of cursing under my breath at the traffic.
After a long flight, a nice relaxing time with Carolyn at her parents' place, and a long drive home, I'm sitting in front of my computer refreshed and ready to face whatever comes my way. I'm not even being sarcastic. The only caveat is that my summer has only a few weeks remaining: I leave for Pennsic in 3 weeks, and when I get back, all Hell breaks loose. It might still be 90 degrees and muggy out, but I won't notice besides trying to get steps on my lunch hour. I'll be in the office, in Ossining, or in tax class.
The vagaries of my calendar notwithstanding, I should note an odd sensation I had while driving home. The ride itself was detoured because of a severe accident on I-95 in Virginia around exit 118. The road was shut down for miles, and we were lucky to have Waze show us an alternative route. We would have been stuck in stand-still traffic for hours otherwise. We made it home with a sliver of twilight remaining, and that meant we had daylight all along the New Jersey Turnpike into New York. It was during that stretch I had the strangest sense of melancholy.
Before I left for North Carolina, Westchester and New York State were wrestling with the budget crisis partially created by the Trump Tax Plan, which I find delightful. The new law prevents property tax rates from being further increased, though the legal 2% (Ha!) increases will continue. Income taxes are similarly hamstrung, which is also a joy to watch. Nevertheless, something had to happen, but what? For the moment, the answer was to raise the County sales tax by 1%, from 3% to 4%, though the total sales tax is 8.375% from 7.375%, which I feel is an equitable solution, and a relatively painless one at that. Scott disagrees.
The difference between us is that I'm an end consumer, so I would pay an extra dollar for every $100. This would mean my car, which cost $8,500, would have a sales tax of $711.88 versus $624.75 . An extra $85.25 isn't nothing, but I'm not buying a new car every week. From a macro perspective, if my total spending is $40,000, I'd pay an extra $410 a year.
Oh the other side of this, Scott is a small business owner, so he has to cover the increased sales tax even if he's unable to raise his prices due to unrelenting competition. According to him, the increase will cost him $125 per month. I have no further context for his calculations, but he did say that he used to make $60,000 and pay $7,100 in taxes, circa 1985, and now he makes $30,000 after paying $18,850 in taxes. Again, I cannot check these numbers, but I'm sure it's more or less correct. This change, and the shift in politics across New York State have put a special onus on question I ask myself and Scott, along with a few other like-minded individuals: when has the breaking point been reached? When have we had enough to the point we're willing (or even forced) to leave our life here in New York and start a new chapter?
I haven't reached that point yet, whatever my feelings on Albany's stupidity, as all that I have both personally and professionally is tied to Westchester County and the policies of New York's financial aid. Simply put, I can't leave, at least not fully. Nevertheless, the day is coming, and it's soon. I'll be 49 at the end of the year, so the end is much nearer than my 401(k) would lead one to believe.
My discussions with Scott during my vacation via text, and his severe reaction to the tax increase, led me to contemplate my own timeline for getting out of the Northeast. Although his family is here, Scott can effectively leave tomorrow if he wanted. He hasn't given up on New York coming to its senses, which I find amusing as well as troubling. Things won't go back to the free market bonanza of the 80's, no matter how much he wishes. Our conversations on this topic has been ongoing since 1998, and I feel I might have made some headway a week ago. The talks are helpful, if only to sharpen my own thinking, enabling me to verbalize how bad I feel things are going to get. My exceptions are... not high.
All of this hit me as we were at the north end of the New Jersey Turnpike. I knew that the Manhattan skyline would be to my right, and I couldn't wait to see the spires of the city I love to call home. They view, obscured by low clouds and summer's humidity was an amazing sight. It reminded me how close I was to my home, and I couldn't wait to get back to Westchester to sleep in my bed, see my friends, and walk my familiar streets, doggies in tow. I say all this even as I had a great time in North Carolina.
My excitement was interrupted, if only for a moment, by the melancholy I mentioned above. Just as I knew that would be home soon, I also knew that one day soon I'd be leaving. This isn't news; it's been a theme of this blog since October 2005. No, what was different was that I keenly understood how much I'll miss it. I love living here in Westchester, and I never felt that as strongly until that moment. I built a life here, filled with love and laughter, victories and failures, along with strife, drama and loss. Whatever I create elsewhere, it won't match what I had here, and I can't expect it to. I also understood at that moment that I was going to leave. The destination is unknown, but it's out there, waiting for me to take the next step.
That next step will have to wait. Financial aid requires my attention tomorrow, as does Ossining's open house tomorrow night. I'll busy myself with Excelsior, folders, and pleas from students who forgot that class attendance isn't optional. I may find myself sneaking a peak at potential rental properties in Florida, or trying to register for the H&R Block tax course. I hope to keep this feeling as I drive down 9A tomorrow, instead of cursing under my breath at the traffic.
Monday, May 29, 2017
The path home, or...
I once was lost and now I'm found, and I never moved an inch.
The post that never seems to get finished covers what I plan to do going forward. As I mentioned in my last two posts, every time I feel I'm ready to truly commit to one path over the other, something so drastically changes as to make the nascent course of action invalid. Now I truly believe I know I have to do - what is most needed right now. That action is... tax abatement! Wait, what? That's it? No grand schemes, no building this or learning that? Well, tax abatement is an oversimplification, but otherwise, yes; it is correct. But that's so... common. Well, then. Anyway, how I choose to do this is a little more involved than just declaring I want to lower my taxes, a common goal for everyone in the middle class, especially those without kids, but that is the goal for at least the next 5 years. Before I explain how I got to this point, and what made other options unappealing, there's a question begging to be answered: why is any of this even necessary?
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I chose the wrong pension plan, and in a larger sense chose the wrong profession, to the extent I was involved in the latter decision in the first place. To one degree or another, each is fixable, but not without some serious work and short-term pain, both personal and professional. In addition to crippling my retirement income and not being well-suited for this job, I was deeply concerned about automation eventually rendering my job obsolete. Of course, everyone should worry about this, but the timeline for me seemed much more immediate. There was also the chance that my college would change my status, as our counseling department is a little unusual compared to other schools. I'm no longer worried about either scenario, at least for myself. I'll examine why a little later. Aside from my insecurities about work, I didn't feel prepared for a world that seems to be collapsing around us. This should also concern everyone, and we should all be doing things to make our lives more resilient, but there's a risk that concentrating so much on the bigger picture is actually just ignoring your own demons, replacing them with ones to large to conquer. It's easier to bemoan the state of the world than change, and I was highly resistant to change. This is a polite way of saying because I was afraid of so many things, I ended up paralyzed, but mostly I was afraid of failing, since it seemed inevitable. Furthermore, the stagnancy and dissatisfaction I've been feeling in my work for the last 5 years or so has gotten much worse of late, and this was before Excelsior burst on the scene like a baby Xenomorph crashing through a chest wall.
On the other hand, I have an amazingly good job despite myself. The salary is good for the area, and fantastic for the job itself, as are the health benefits, while the vacation is other worldly. Also, I am cleaning up the financial messes of my early (um, to mid) adulthood, and while I've made great progress, I'm still in serious debt. It's manageable, thanks to what I make. However, the salary has stagnated somewhat, and because overtime has been curtailed, actually regressed. Also, we haven't had a new contract for almost 7 years and the negotiations were stalled to the point that Sate of New York had to get involved. While my income still outpaces my expenses, the gap has narrowed, and other ways I could earn a living were looking more and more like better options, as the salaries were growing, whereas mine was not. The short-term pain would have been worth it after 5 years or so. With all that in mind, let me cut and paste the post I started March 15th.:
The post that never seems to get finished covers what I plan to do going forward. As I mentioned in my last two posts, every time I feel I'm ready to truly commit to one path over the other, something so drastically changes as to make the nascent course of action invalid. Now I truly believe I know I have to do - what is most needed right now. That action is... tax abatement! Wait, what? That's it? No grand schemes, no building this or learning that? Well, tax abatement is an oversimplification, but otherwise, yes; it is correct. But that's so... common. Well, then. Anyway, how I choose to do this is a little more involved than just declaring I want to lower my taxes, a common goal for everyone in the middle class, especially those without kids, but that is the goal for at least the next 5 years. Before I explain how I got to this point, and what made other options unappealing, there's a question begging to be answered: why is any of this even necessary?
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I chose the wrong pension plan, and in a larger sense chose the wrong profession, to the extent I was involved in the latter decision in the first place. To one degree or another, each is fixable, but not without some serious work and short-term pain, both personal and professional. In addition to crippling my retirement income and not being well-suited for this job, I was deeply concerned about automation eventually rendering my job obsolete. Of course, everyone should worry about this, but the timeline for me seemed much more immediate. There was also the chance that my college would change my status, as our counseling department is a little unusual compared to other schools. I'm no longer worried about either scenario, at least for myself. I'll examine why a little later. Aside from my insecurities about work, I didn't feel prepared for a world that seems to be collapsing around us. This should also concern everyone, and we should all be doing things to make our lives more resilient, but there's a risk that concentrating so much on the bigger picture is actually just ignoring your own demons, replacing them with ones to large to conquer. It's easier to bemoan the state of the world than change, and I was highly resistant to change. This is a polite way of saying because I was afraid of so many things, I ended up paralyzed, but mostly I was afraid of failing, since it seemed inevitable. Furthermore, the stagnancy and dissatisfaction I've been feeling in my work for the last 5 years or so has gotten much worse of late, and this was before Excelsior burst on the scene like a baby Xenomorph crashing through a chest wall.
On the other hand, I have an amazingly good job despite myself. The salary is good for the area, and fantastic for the job itself, as are the health benefits, while the vacation is other worldly. Also, I am cleaning up the financial messes of my early (um, to mid) adulthood, and while I've made great progress, I'm still in serious debt. It's manageable, thanks to what I make. However, the salary has stagnated somewhat, and because overtime has been curtailed, actually regressed. Also, we haven't had a new contract for almost 7 years and the negotiations were stalled to the point that Sate of New York had to get involved. While my income still outpaces my expenses, the gap has narrowed, and other ways I could earn a living were looking more and more like better options, as the salaries were growing, whereas mine was not. The short-term pain would have been worth it after 5 years or so. With all that in mind, let me cut and paste the post I started March 15th.:
A recap, and, perhaps, a new direction, or...
What I did on my Autumn vacation.
While watching the Republican Party seemingly self-destruct, only to watch the most shocking electoral result in American history, the Fall semester took an unexpected turn. I had been struggling with keeping all my balls in the air, and my self-doubt has been its typically omnipresent shadow. I needed to do something, check off anything on my list, if only to feel productive and somehow convince myself I was on the right path. I didn't expect it to be my taking the EMT class here at work.
In addition to all the perks I've listed here, there's one that's almost never mentioned: free classes. I did avail myself of this right (and it's in the contract, so the term is correct.) by taking the ESL program. Beyond that, I took a few business classes that, much like the ESL program, amounted to exactly nothing.
The EMT class was different, as it checked off multiple boxes, in multiple categories, on my to-do list.
The above excerpt is 100% accurate and meaningless in equal measure. The EMT course was great. I earned my "A," and was accepted into the Valhalla Volunteer Ambulance Corps, where I volunteer today. Of course, it was all part of a grander plan: go back to school and become a physician assistant. I'm smart enough, have a talent for medicine, a desire to help people, and I've always wanted to do it, but it never seemed to be the right time. I took the EMT class to dip my toe in the water, and gain an avenue to the medical experience needed to get into a program. The linchpin of this plan was that all of the prerequisite courses were available here at my college, and were almost free. True, I had to buy books, supplies, and pay fees, but I'd spend more on a weekend in the Poconos, so that wasn't the issue. Any thoughts I had about being too old similarly disappeared when I read an article about late- life medical students, including one who was 48. Everything was in order, so why aren't I taking those classes right now, getting ready to start treating patients at 49?
First, there's the money. Last September I estimated the cost at around $350,000. That figures breaks down as follows: the tuition would have been around $85,000 for tuition, assuming I went to a private college, while the CUNY and SUNY programs would have been $42,000, give or take. I also had to account for 2 years with no work, at around $220,000, with the difference being Spartan living conditions while in school. I concentrated on the areas I know best, so my most reasonable choices were Pace University, Mercy College, SUNY upstate and Downstate medical centers, the CUNY system and Barry University and FIU in Miami, (though I was secretly hoping for Barry's program on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On the other hand, Carolyn would have been less than pleased to learn I'd be going to school in the Tropics. I'd give her my miles so she could fly down whenever she wished.) Getting the money isn't an issue; the financing is there. Graduate PLUS loans would have covered the full cost of attendance, so I could have borrowed all the money needed to pay for school and my upkeep. Of course, having perfect credit helps. The starting salary of a PA is around $120,000, depending on specialty, and the growth in pay is strong, so I'd make up whatever money I'd spend over the long term, as well as a well-financed pension.
The location of the program was irrelevant, and I probably would have applied at every PA program in the nation. Miami or St. Croix would have been nice, but that was it. As to why I was looking at the expensive private schools, you do have to budget for private colleges in this situation, and if you can't afford a private college, you probably won't be able to go. State PA programs are insanely hard to get in to. Local private PA schools are no picnic either, A conversation I often have with students looking to become doctors is that I assure them they'll get into a medical school. Where they go, how much it costs, and where they'll complete their clinical rotations, etc. are the questions that need to be asked. While I worked there, Mercy College actually had an articulation agreement with a university in Poland, allowing Mercy's students to attend the Polish medical school while getting American financial aid. My fellow Gen-X'ers will remember the invasion of Grenada in 1983, where 600 medical students who were getting a tan whilst hitting the books, were seen as tempting hostages and giving America a reason (pretext?) to invade, as an historical example. PA school is harder to get into than medical school, as it's an American invention, with only a handful of English-speaking countries adapting the position, but lacking the educational opportunities. If you get an MD, but don't pass the boards, you're automatically a PA instead. Don't think I didn't consider this; for a hot minute, it was in play. Whatever school accepted me, was it really worth it? From a purely financial perspective, maybe, but for my personal life, it would have been hard. If the salary stays the same at my school, then I could have made more money over the long term. In keeping with the theme of this post, it's in flux, but more on that later.
Second, while I loved the EMT course, it completely beat me senseless. Juggling the demands of the class, work, taking care of myself, and making time for my girlfriend, my family, and my other friends, was almost more than I could handle. I had to be talked out of quitting many times. I'm glad I stuck with it, but everyone could see the toll it was taking. This was just one class, and I needed to take 2 per semester for two years. The courses include Chemistry 1&2, Microbiology, Biology, Anatomy and Physiology 1&2, and perhaps Statistics. These are by far the hardest classes to both attempt and get. Calculus 2 is probably harder academically, but so few students want to take it that getting a seat isn't a problem. The percentage of students who want to get in to our health programs is huge, around 33% by my unscientific guess. If that is correct, then thousands of students are competing for a limited number of slots. My task was daunting, to say the least. Aside from the academic difficulties, there was another aspect of the class I hadn't considered: I really shouldn't be that cozy with students, and the EMT class was a very tight-knit group. The material was difficult, and we had to work together, thus a bond was formed. I have less leeway in this regard than most faculty, and it's my fault that's the case. It also makes the teachers uncomfortable. I'm actually a senior faculty member, known by most of the instructors thanks to my service as a senator, and I have a good reputation, and I don't like the idea of putting someone in a difficult situation.
First, there's the money. Last September I estimated the cost at around $350,000. That figures breaks down as follows: the tuition would have been around $85,000 for tuition, assuming I went to a private college, while the CUNY and SUNY programs would have been $42,000, give or take. I also had to account for 2 years with no work, at around $220,000, with the difference being Spartan living conditions while in school. I concentrated on the areas I know best, so my most reasonable choices were Pace University, Mercy College, SUNY upstate and Downstate medical centers, the CUNY system and Barry University and FIU in Miami, (though I was secretly hoping for Barry's program on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On the other hand, Carolyn would have been less than pleased to learn I'd be going to school in the Tropics. I'd give her my miles so she could fly down whenever she wished.) Getting the money isn't an issue; the financing is there. Graduate PLUS loans would have covered the full cost of attendance, so I could have borrowed all the money needed to pay for school and my upkeep. Of course, having perfect credit helps. The starting salary of a PA is around $120,000, depending on specialty, and the growth in pay is strong, so I'd make up whatever money I'd spend over the long term, as well as a well-financed pension.
The location of the program was irrelevant, and I probably would have applied at every PA program in the nation. Miami or St. Croix would have been nice, but that was it. As to why I was looking at the expensive private schools, you do have to budget for private colleges in this situation, and if you can't afford a private college, you probably won't be able to go. State PA programs are insanely hard to get in to. Local private PA schools are no picnic either, A conversation I often have with students looking to become doctors is that I assure them they'll get into a medical school. Where they go, how much it costs, and where they'll complete their clinical rotations, etc. are the questions that need to be asked. While I worked there, Mercy College actually had an articulation agreement with a university in Poland, allowing Mercy's students to attend the Polish medical school while getting American financial aid. My fellow Gen-X'ers will remember the invasion of Grenada in 1983, where 600 medical students who were getting a tan whilst hitting the books, were seen as tempting hostages and giving America a reason (pretext?) to invade, as an historical example. PA school is harder to get into than medical school, as it's an American invention, with only a handful of English-speaking countries adapting the position, but lacking the educational opportunities. If you get an MD, but don't pass the boards, you're automatically a PA instead. Don't think I didn't consider this; for a hot minute, it was in play. Whatever school accepted me, was it really worth it? From a purely financial perspective, maybe, but for my personal life, it would have been hard. If the salary stays the same at my school, then I could have made more money over the long term. In keeping with the theme of this post, it's in flux, but more on that later.
Second, while I loved the EMT course, it completely beat me senseless. Juggling the demands of the class, work, taking care of myself, and making time for my girlfriend, my family, and my other friends, was almost more than I could handle. I had to be talked out of quitting many times. I'm glad I stuck with it, but everyone could see the toll it was taking. This was just one class, and I needed to take 2 per semester for two years. The courses include Chemistry 1&2, Microbiology, Biology, Anatomy and Physiology 1&2, and perhaps Statistics. These are by far the hardest classes to both attempt and get. Calculus 2 is probably harder academically, but so few students want to take it that getting a seat isn't a problem. The percentage of students who want to get in to our health programs is huge, around 33% by my unscientific guess. If that is correct, then thousands of students are competing for a limited number of slots. My task was daunting, to say the least. Aside from the academic difficulties, there was another aspect of the class I hadn't considered: I really shouldn't be that cozy with students, and the EMT class was a very tight-knit group. The material was difficult, and we had to work together, thus a bond was formed. I have less leeway in this regard than most faculty, and it's my fault that's the case. It also makes the teachers uncomfortable. I'm actually a senior faculty member, known by most of the instructors thanks to my service as a senator, and I have a good reputation, and I don't like the idea of putting someone in a difficult situation.
With all of this in mind, I vacillated other the space of four months before deciding that becoming a PA wasn't an option. My lovely girlfriend was less than enthused at the idea, though she did say she'd support me in whatever I chose. I appreciated her standing by me.
So becoming a PA is out, what else did I have planned? There was some dalliance with the idea of becoming a therapist, and that would be much more viable than becoming a PA. I have a B.A. in Psychology already, and I've been seeing shrinks since I was old enough to speak complete sentences, so I'm well suited for the job. The classes I would need to take are as follows: Intro to Psych, and Abnormal Psych, and... that's it. The former would merely be preparation for the GRE test, and the latter because I never took it. I may be the only psych grad in FIU history to not take it. I studied Industrial Organizational (I/O) Psychology for the most part anyway. The degree I'd take would have been a Master's in Counseling or a Master's in Social Work. I discounted a PhD automatically, though I did give some consideration to a Psy. D, because the thought of writing a dissertation filled me with despair, but a doctorate would have been nice.
The same factors that made the PA program untenable were in effect here as well, though not to the same degree. I wouldn't have needed to stop working, and the college would have paid for some of the classes, as it is related to what I do now: counseling. More importantly, I can do this job for longer than a medical professional. You can also do this on the side, carving out a few hours a week to see clients, all while working at the college, then moving to warmer climes and doing it full time, or to the extent you wish. On the other hand, there's the prospect of little to no payoff. PA's are in huge demand, but therapists are plentiful. It may have the effect of helping me do something different at the college, especially if I finished a PhD, but that's overstating the likelihood of such an opportunity. Both becoming a PA or therapist helped me fulfill another goal, just as becoming an EMT checked off multiple boxes. Carolyn and I don't want to live in New York much longer, and while my present job is available all over the country, my salary is not. I don't feel like taking a 75% (or greater!) pay cut. I haven't quite given up on either course, but aside from become an EMT, I haven't done anything concrete either.
This is nothing new, but in keeping with the theme of change, almost all of the personal circumstances that I felt required the dramatic re-invention of my life (and to a certain extent, allowed for it to happen) were upended. The macro issues didn't change: the world is still aflame, and we have a fairly bellicose president to stoke the fire. (Clinton would have been worse, though quieter in her hawkishness, so stop feeling smug, I mean really...); economically, things are stagnant, with the prospect of higher interest rates for at least another 18 months. A serious economic crash will occur; that's just a truism of the business cycle, one that's been forestalled for years. The problem is that we have no way to bail ourselves out this time. Politically, we're thoroughly divided, and I don't even want to speculate as to how bad things could get. We live in a dark time, but that can always be said. While Colombia is benefiting from the end of 50 years of a low-grade civil war and the end of the cocaine cartels (while still providing enough blow to blanket South Florida), Venezuela is burning to the ground, with people starving, generals promising to set snipers on the population, and crime running unchecked. 25 years ago, Colombia was effectively a failed narco-state, and Venezuela was seen as proof that socialism actually does work. Instability, both political and economic, is always present somewhere in the world, with chaos and suffering bubbling just beneath the surface; the average American is just noticing that he might fall prey to those forces as well. My approach to these bigger concerns has changed, as mentioned above. I can only take care of myself, Carolyn, her son, and my family and friends. When I concentrate on that, real change and hard work occurs. If I get prepared, help others do the same, and remain vigilant, I can be happy with my efforts, even if the worst does happen. We are in control of so little, with luck a far bigger factor in one's success and survival than most wish to acknowledge. I count myself as blessed that I understand my own good fortune. The smaller issues were the ones that were so radically changed, with statuses flip-flopping more than Bill Clinton. (I'm very sorry - wait, not really.)
One of the biggest factors holding me back was the time needed to take the classes, both here and the grad program. I have plenty of vacation, but little in the way of unstructured free time. Then, suddenly, I had all the time in the world needed to do any side project I could think of. Then, just as suddenly, I didn't, and now I do again. The original change was caused by two things. First, I don't travel the way I once did. I don't want to take big trips and be away from Carolyn for that long, though she said she wouldn't have a problem with it. There are better uses of the money as well, even as cheap travel is a specialty of mine. That led to the second change, one of perception: since I'm not flitting hither and yon, why can't I take the same few hours every week to carve out enough time to take a day class? What reason is there that I couldn't take that same block of time to take a train to the city and attend CUNY? There isn't. My boss said she was amenable, though January and September would be difficult, but it wasn't impossible, so why not? If that wasn't going to happen, couldn't I use the time to develop a business or take a class in some aspect of home improvement, perhaps though the college's continuing education programs? Sure I could. Then, out of the blue, my one of my fellow counselors had his kids kidnapped internationally, and missed weeks of work wending his way through the Spanish courts. We were told we'd need to pick up the slack, which didn't need to be said. I've been working with the guy for nearly 20 years, and he was my boss at Mercy. Of course we'd take care of his students. We're not a group of coworkers; we're a family. Honestly, we all wouldn't put up with one other if we weren't. When he returned with his two sons, he became a single parent, and may have needed regular time off to take care of the boys, so my schemes were dashed. However, he found plenty of help, works a normal schedule, and said pointedly that such arrangements were unnecessary. Does this mean I'm back in business? It seems that way. So what will my excuse be this time?
From an immediate financial perspective, the news was mixed. Overtime, the great boost to my income, was greatly reduced. There's justification for this, as our enrollment is way down compared to 5 years ago, but relative stable compared to to other community colleges in New York, and if I'm in control of my spending, shouldn't need the overtime to shore up my budget. Still, you get used to the extra money, and spending is like water: it seeks its own level. As I said earlier, my salary is outstanding for the job, but only decent for the area. This is Westchester, after all. I've improved my money management greatly, but it could be better. Like many of my changes in habits, it ebbs and flows, progress being three steps forward, and one or two steps back.
Our stagnant wages has been a source of great frustration for the faculty (even as we're grossly overpaid), and the almost seven years without a contract has made us all very irritated. Part of the problem is that the school is in a period of great transition, with one president retiring (air quotes implied) after 43 years, then we had two years of an interim president who wouldn't negotiate with our union, since he felt the new president should do that. Our new president had to start from zero, but with a faculty in near revolt. This left us to where we were when I started the EMT class: at an impasse, with negotiations all but dead. The union fought back; the Senate had a minor insurrection, and as of three weeks ago, we have a new contract.We will be paying something for healthcare, but that was inevitable. I don't have any more details, since no one will tell the rank and file, but I know it's a net positive, as we never would have agreed otherwise. I'm expecting a nice raise, and a tidy sum in retro pay. As a result, it will become less advantageous to leave, as I'm giving up more money than before. One could say I should have expected this to happen at some point, but I honestly didn't. I can also expect at least one more contract to be negotiated before my time is done, with the attendant increases to follow.
Salvaging my retirement, while still important, is no longer the Sword of Damocles dangling above my head. My accounts have grown significantly, and with my short-term debts paid off, I have been pouring money into my 401(A) at a nice clip. Effectively, I've reached, or am close to reaching, a tipping point, where I'm just as good staying here as leaving. The situation isn't perfect, and I'm earmarking money I wouldn't have needed to, if I had checked two boxes instead of one. Still, I will be in a position to support myself and Carolyn. Once word of the new contract was given, I spent the better part of two days crunching numbers, check to see what I'd have saved if I retired at 55, 59 1/2, and 62, calculating returns of 6, 8, and 11%, and examining increases in contributions based on the possible raises we are getting in the new contract, and how much I would add as well. It was a fun exercise, though the numbers aren't exact, serving only as a rough guide. Much depends on the rate of return, but with a raise, and the aforementioned tax abatement strategy, I can save gobs of money in my TIAA-CREF accounts. The aim of getting a pension is still there, but is no longer the primary driver of the choices I'm making. I'm not a good enough writer to describe the feeling of relief I have at this development. Actually, I could thing up a few choice metaphors, but they're all sexual in nature and my girlfriend reads this blog. Now if you'll pardon me, I need a cigarette and a change in shorts.
The biggest financial change, and by far the most unexpected, was my tax return for 2016. I've used Turbo Tax for years, and felt I did a good job, but I guess I was mistaken. My friend Mike, whom I met through Scott, found deductions I didn't know I had, to the point he more than doubled my federal return, and took me from a small New York State bill to a $900 refund. This money allowed me to payoff my final short-term debt, and in addition to allowing me to increase my retirement savings beyond what I was already doing, has allowed me to build a small financial cushion. That buffer is not where it needs to be, but I only started 6 weeks ago. More important was Mike's vast pool of knowledge concerning money. When I explained to him my frustrations and my plans, he calmly gave me a starting point for my own business, based in a model I already picked out, and what to do for the long term, real estate in this case, and how to maximize my tax savings no matter what I chose. I was always focused on a particular outcome concerning a business, one that was so specific that it seemed impossible to attain. This resulted in little to no real work. Mike taught me I needed to concentrate on the right structure, so that I could meld my personal financial situation with that of my business, generating tax savings as well as profits, with profits being the secondary concern, at least for the first two years. Real estate is where the true money is made, but crawling before I walk, the business is first. Moreover, you need the numbers to work, and we're in a massive real estate bubble, worse than in 2007. There will be opportunities, but they don't exist right now. With the money I'll save and hopefully earn with the company, name to be announced shortly, I can have available capital for investment properties after the markets regress to the mean. The specifics for both phases is beyond the scope of this post, so I'll dive into these waters in a later missive. However I choose to maximize my income, I realized that I earned plenty of money, but I wasn't keeping enough of it. That must not be the case going forward. I've always thought of ways to maximize my deductions, but not like this. One of my favorite techniques was to get used furniture for free and donate it, but bedbugs killed that idea. Anyway, from the first sentence, I was floored at the simplicity of his outline, and how easy he made it for me. He also said I could make a killing as a financial aid consultant. I replied I wouldn't no how to do that, and he stated I didn't know how to charge for it. Touche'. As we were talking, I had to ask myself the following: is this what students experience when they talk to me about college? Because it sure feels that way. I was humbled and prideful at the same time.
The financial changes, both in the practical sense, and the changes to my attitudes and behaviors, would have been enough for my to stop tilting at windmills, but the professional changes are also important. By this I mean the Excelsior Scholarship, and the difference in the way I view the program.
My first encounter with Excelsior was one of dismay. Although the details were sketchy, I knew it was a rush job, and the complaints, mistakes, delays, and misinformation would cause huge pain for me and my coworkers. Also, there was an existential crisis, at least for me. The good I do in this job seemed to disappear overnight, leaving me as nothing more than a paper pushing bureaucrat with no real value or purpose. I may have been that already, but I did feel there were times when I truly helped people, whether it was a friend trying to fix her defaulted student loan and return to school, or an overwhelmed family trying to make sense of competing scholarship offers from different colleges, wondering which one was the best choice. This wouldn't completely disappear, but it would be a tiny fraction instead of my main focus. The college would need financial aid less, I reasoned, since New York was paying the bills en masse. It was depressing all around.
So why do I feel differently as I write this? The training in Corning did nothing to allay my fears. If anything, the trip had worse news than I expected. There wasn't enough money to fully fund the program; as a result, there would be a lottery; returning students had priority; the academic standards were draconian, and the application wouldn't be ready until June. I digested this news over three days, using what free time I had to walk. Corning is small, but well-preserved, and made for pedestrians. I could traverse the 3.5 miles from my hotel to the conference if I felt ambitious, without any break in the sidewalks. I'm dedicated to my health, but not that much. In any event, multiple lengthy strolls and long talks with my boss gave me the chance to reflect. I knew there was something I wasn't quite understanding about the situation, but I couldn't place my finger on it. It hit me days later when I realized I was looking at this the wrong way. I was obsessing over the increased number of applications and students we'd need to service. I imagined the frantic calls from parents, from schools, churches, even the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks could call me for all I knew, all of whom realized they'd been sold a bill of goods. I'd probably want to organize an info session for the all the junior EMT corps throughout Westchester. I though of all the extra work required, all the other people at the college I'd need to speak with, explaining this mess. I wasn't depressed any longer; I was despondent. Then it hit me: Excelsior wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to financial aid - it was the best! The power of this realization almost caused me to drive off the road, but once I regained my bearings, I understood that everything that made the program a disaster was a golden, nay, platinum opportunity for me and my colleagues. This isn't an aid program gone wrong; it's a work of fucking art. It is so beautiful in its malformation, so perfect in its imperfection, so genius in its stupidity, so rapturous in the pain it will inflict on all of us, that it can be described no other way but art. In a flash, the prospect of being replaced by computers wasn't an issue. Excelsior would need humans looking at applications, transcripts, and tax information. It would also require humans to explain to people why they aren't getting the program, or more accurately, why they aren't getting the program any more, which will be a much larger issue. Someone will need to speak to high schools, civic organizations, and other people at the college, explaining this nonsense. Well, who better than someone who is an excellent public speaker, adept at breaking down arcane financial aid regulations into something more easily understood, and just happened to be at the only training available for the entire state, because he felt like paying for it out of pocket, well before this program was even an (awful) idea? Wow, I'm getting all tingly as I type this. I'm not screwed; I'm saved. I'm already getting calls from Westchester high schools asking for my help. I now have more opportunity to do good, thanks to how they slapped this program together. Even better, the overtime will flow once more as we try to help the innumerable applicants who think they're going to school for free. They're not, obviously, though some will benefit, at least in the beginning. There's even the chance we'll get another counselor, but that's probably not going to happen. I'll take the overtime and run. Albany did fix a few things, but it's still an unwieldy mess, and it's still going to save my job. The best (or the worst?) part was that there was a right way to do this, as I mentioned in an earlier post: max out TAP, then go get lunch. If that had happened, then I'd be looking for PA programs throughout the United States, medical schools in the Caribbean, and taking 12 credits a semester. My bank account, physical health, social life, and girlfriend thank you Gov. Cuomo. Well done.
The final change was one that occurred and built up over the space of two years. I fell in love with a wonderful woman, Carolyn. She does not agree with my and Scott's gloomy predictions, and she certainly doesn't agree with me being a Republican. Nevertheless, we're together, and where she is, I will be as well. As such, any notion of going offshore is gone. I still subscribe to certain podcasts, read certain newsletters, and I would go to Simon Black's next conference in a heartbeat, but I stand with her, and if that means I must deal with the fallout of an economic and social collapse up close, then so be it. I'm taking the steps needed to be of use when this occurs: becoming and volunteering as an EMT, developing relationships within the first responder community, improving my health, getting my finances in order and deploying that money to insure I have the supplies and skills needed for a major crisis, and helping others get themselves ready. If Carolyn was more amenable to going abroad, then I would take additional steps, but it won't happen. I did get her to travel to Canada, and I'd love to take her to Greece, but that would be the extent of our wanderings.
Reviewing my posts on the subjects of expatriation and economic collapse, I'm struck at the prerequisite underpinning everything I've written. They all needed a solitary man in front of the keyboard. Did this pursuit assume I'd always be alone? Probably, yes, though I was trying to date and find a relationship. That's not the best question to ask, however. Did this goal insure I would be alone or did I use it as a shield to avoid doing the work required to develop a relationship? I did date, a little, but it never lasted until now. Not automatically for the first part, and there's some validity to the second part. Again, concentrating too much on the big issues outside of your control means you don't have to look at yourself. This leads to an even better question to ask: did both this goal and the points of view required, as well my near total lack of action, cause me to be alone? The answer is that it sure as shit didn't help. For those women who did not agree with my declarations, I must have sounded like Chicken Little at best, or a complete lunatic at worst. For those who did agree with me, or were at least willing to listen, I presented myself as someone just shouting into the wind, with no follow through. Either I didn't really believe what I was saying, or I was too weak or scared or lazy to do anything besides yapping. That's not an attractive look either way.
I've been hammering away at this post in one version or another for months. I've started, stopped, abandoned, then restarted it all over again. What made its completion possible is that I realized that this work, like any other writing, is a snapshot of conditions as they appear while you're putting pen to paper. I was looking for permanence in a world that never offered such a state. My circumstances do feel more settled, but the situations I've described above aren't fixed in amber, and the plans I'm making as a result of my suppositions may be as flawed as anything else I've undertaken. The County Executive, Rob Astorino, could veto our new contract, just as he did for the school's CSEA contract, freezing our pay for the foreseeable future, or Albany could work out the problems of Excelsior, advancing our irrelevancy. There will come a time where automation and changes to higher education will put us out to pasture; the question has always been whether or not I'll make it to my own finish line before the world of education reaches its own end - and new beginning. With what I discovered about business, the help I've gained, and my new willingness to risk failure, I'm less concerned than I have been. I feel ahead of the curve for once, being proactive rather than reactive. If I were a little more circumspect in my writing style, my posts would stand the test of time better than they do. Still, delving deeper into the psychology behind these essays, I realize now I was doing things backwards. Instead of living by principles, I was living by outcomes. Everything had to be perfect, which isn't possible. There's also the possibility that somewhere deep in my subconscious I didn't feel all the extra work was needed, or that I was so angry at myself for my innumerable mistakes that I was passive-aggressively protesting, shaking my fist at the world, hurting only myself.
None of what's written above should be interpreted to mean I'm somehow done, or that I've arrived. I cannot rest on my laurels, because I don't have any on which to plant my ass. What I do have is a start, and direction, and some self-confidence, where before I didn't. I'm happy with myself in a way I've probably never experienced before, and no matter what happens, I hold that feeling in the palm of my hand and hold it gently. I'm in love with a beautiful woman who loves me in return, and we get to build a life together, making our two separate existences into one shared experience. There's plenty of work to be done, but I have the chance to do that work, and that is a miracle for someone not 5 1/2 years ago was so obsessed with the world collapsing around him that I didn't do anything to stop the fact that I was slowly killing myself. My friends did, and brought me out of that darkness into the light, where I stand now.
At my core, I'm an academic. Whether I express that calling by speaking in front of a group of high school seniors and their families, or teach a class on using the Internet in 1998 at Shawnee Inn, is unimportant. I will always question and study and ruminate on life, and the question I'm asking as I type this is: what makes change possible for the individual? It's a fascinating subject, and with all my experiences and my relationships, I'm struck at how difficult true change really is, and I wonder if the changes I've made are real or not. I hope so. For the sake of argument, let's say that it is real, at least for now. Of everything I've just written, what was the most important change that occurred? The answer, of course, was the change in my attitudes and beliefs. Where before I saw only strife and mistakes, today I see opportunity, both for my own benefit, and the chance to help others. Changes in behavior followed, or was it the other way around? I cannot say. What made all that possible? Was the culmination of difficult personal work, healing the wounds of the past? Was it my relationship? Was it my getting older to the point I couldn't blame anyone or anything for my situation but myself? Was it all of those things combined, or was it something else entirely I cannot see at this moment? I don't know. Changes in people's circumstances happen everyday. Why do some alter course, while others are swept away by the riptides of life? I could examine this topic endlessly and never tire of the subject. Come to think of it, wouldn't that make an excellent dissertation topic for a PhD or a Master's thesis?
Nah. Now if you'll excuse me, Excelsior Shipping, my new Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) business, name suggested by Mike, needs some attention.
So becoming a PA is out, what else did I have planned? There was some dalliance with the idea of becoming a therapist, and that would be much more viable than becoming a PA. I have a B.A. in Psychology already, and I've been seeing shrinks since I was old enough to speak complete sentences, so I'm well suited for the job. The classes I would need to take are as follows: Intro to Psych, and Abnormal Psych, and... that's it. The former would merely be preparation for the GRE test, and the latter because I never took it. I may be the only psych grad in FIU history to not take it. I studied Industrial Organizational (I/O) Psychology for the most part anyway. The degree I'd take would have been a Master's in Counseling or a Master's in Social Work. I discounted a PhD automatically, though I did give some consideration to a Psy. D, because the thought of writing a dissertation filled me with despair, but a doctorate would have been nice.
The same factors that made the PA program untenable were in effect here as well, though not to the same degree. I wouldn't have needed to stop working, and the college would have paid for some of the classes, as it is related to what I do now: counseling. More importantly, I can do this job for longer than a medical professional. You can also do this on the side, carving out a few hours a week to see clients, all while working at the college, then moving to warmer climes and doing it full time, or to the extent you wish. On the other hand, there's the prospect of little to no payoff. PA's are in huge demand, but therapists are plentiful. It may have the effect of helping me do something different at the college, especially if I finished a PhD, but that's overstating the likelihood of such an opportunity. Both becoming a PA or therapist helped me fulfill another goal, just as becoming an EMT checked off multiple boxes. Carolyn and I don't want to live in New York much longer, and while my present job is available all over the country, my salary is not. I don't feel like taking a 75% (or greater!) pay cut. I haven't quite given up on either course, but aside from become an EMT, I haven't done anything concrete either.
This is nothing new, but in keeping with the theme of change, almost all of the personal circumstances that I felt required the dramatic re-invention of my life (and to a certain extent, allowed for it to happen) were upended. The macro issues didn't change: the world is still aflame, and we have a fairly bellicose president to stoke the fire. (Clinton would have been worse, though quieter in her hawkishness, so stop feeling smug, I mean really...); economically, things are stagnant, with the prospect of higher interest rates for at least another 18 months. A serious economic crash will occur; that's just a truism of the business cycle, one that's been forestalled for years. The problem is that we have no way to bail ourselves out this time. Politically, we're thoroughly divided, and I don't even want to speculate as to how bad things could get. We live in a dark time, but that can always be said. While Colombia is benefiting from the end of 50 years of a low-grade civil war and the end of the cocaine cartels (while still providing enough blow to blanket South Florida), Venezuela is burning to the ground, with people starving, generals promising to set snipers on the population, and crime running unchecked. 25 years ago, Colombia was effectively a failed narco-state, and Venezuela was seen as proof that socialism actually does work. Instability, both political and economic, is always present somewhere in the world, with chaos and suffering bubbling just beneath the surface; the average American is just noticing that he might fall prey to those forces as well. My approach to these bigger concerns has changed, as mentioned above. I can only take care of myself, Carolyn, her son, and my family and friends. When I concentrate on that, real change and hard work occurs. If I get prepared, help others do the same, and remain vigilant, I can be happy with my efforts, even if the worst does happen. We are in control of so little, with luck a far bigger factor in one's success and survival than most wish to acknowledge. I count myself as blessed that I understand my own good fortune. The smaller issues were the ones that were so radically changed, with statuses flip-flopping more than Bill Clinton. (I'm very sorry - wait, not really.)
One of the biggest factors holding me back was the time needed to take the classes, both here and the grad program. I have plenty of vacation, but little in the way of unstructured free time. Then, suddenly, I had all the time in the world needed to do any side project I could think of. Then, just as suddenly, I didn't, and now I do again. The original change was caused by two things. First, I don't travel the way I once did. I don't want to take big trips and be away from Carolyn for that long, though she said she wouldn't have a problem with it. There are better uses of the money as well, even as cheap travel is a specialty of mine. That led to the second change, one of perception: since I'm not flitting hither and yon, why can't I take the same few hours every week to carve out enough time to take a day class? What reason is there that I couldn't take that same block of time to take a train to the city and attend CUNY? There isn't. My boss said she was amenable, though January and September would be difficult, but it wasn't impossible, so why not? If that wasn't going to happen, couldn't I use the time to develop a business or take a class in some aspect of home improvement, perhaps though the college's continuing education programs? Sure I could. Then, out of the blue, my one of my fellow counselors had his kids kidnapped internationally, and missed weeks of work wending his way through the Spanish courts. We were told we'd need to pick up the slack, which didn't need to be said. I've been working with the guy for nearly 20 years, and he was my boss at Mercy. Of course we'd take care of his students. We're not a group of coworkers; we're a family. Honestly, we all wouldn't put up with one other if we weren't. When he returned with his two sons, he became a single parent, and may have needed regular time off to take care of the boys, so my schemes were dashed. However, he found plenty of help, works a normal schedule, and said pointedly that such arrangements were unnecessary. Does this mean I'm back in business? It seems that way. So what will my excuse be this time?
From an immediate financial perspective, the news was mixed. Overtime, the great boost to my income, was greatly reduced. There's justification for this, as our enrollment is way down compared to 5 years ago, but relative stable compared to to other community colleges in New York, and if I'm in control of my spending, shouldn't need the overtime to shore up my budget. Still, you get used to the extra money, and spending is like water: it seeks its own level. As I said earlier, my salary is outstanding for the job, but only decent for the area. This is Westchester, after all. I've improved my money management greatly, but it could be better. Like many of my changes in habits, it ebbs and flows, progress being three steps forward, and one or two steps back.
Our stagnant wages has been a source of great frustration for the faculty (even as we're grossly overpaid), and the almost seven years without a contract has made us all very irritated. Part of the problem is that the school is in a period of great transition, with one president retiring (air quotes implied) after 43 years, then we had two years of an interim president who wouldn't negotiate with our union, since he felt the new president should do that. Our new president had to start from zero, but with a faculty in near revolt. This left us to where we were when I started the EMT class: at an impasse, with negotiations all but dead. The union fought back; the Senate had a minor insurrection, and as of three weeks ago, we have a new contract.We will be paying something for healthcare, but that was inevitable. I don't have any more details, since no one will tell the rank and file, but I know it's a net positive, as we never would have agreed otherwise. I'm expecting a nice raise, and a tidy sum in retro pay. As a result, it will become less advantageous to leave, as I'm giving up more money than before. One could say I should have expected this to happen at some point, but I honestly didn't. I can also expect at least one more contract to be negotiated before my time is done, with the attendant increases to follow.
Salvaging my retirement, while still important, is no longer the Sword of Damocles dangling above my head. My accounts have grown significantly, and with my short-term debts paid off, I have been pouring money into my 401(A) at a nice clip. Effectively, I've reached, or am close to reaching, a tipping point, where I'm just as good staying here as leaving. The situation isn't perfect, and I'm earmarking money I wouldn't have needed to, if I had checked two boxes instead of one. Still, I will be in a position to support myself and Carolyn. Once word of the new contract was given, I spent the better part of two days crunching numbers, check to see what I'd have saved if I retired at 55, 59 1/2, and 62, calculating returns of 6, 8, and 11%, and examining increases in contributions based on the possible raises we are getting in the new contract, and how much I would add as well. It was a fun exercise, though the numbers aren't exact, serving only as a rough guide. Much depends on the rate of return, but with a raise, and the aforementioned tax abatement strategy, I can save gobs of money in my TIAA-CREF accounts. The aim of getting a pension is still there, but is no longer the primary driver of the choices I'm making. I'm not a good enough writer to describe the feeling of relief I have at this development. Actually, I could thing up a few choice metaphors, but they're all sexual in nature and my girlfriend reads this blog. Now if you'll pardon me, I need a cigarette and a change in shorts.
The biggest financial change, and by far the most unexpected, was my tax return for 2016. I've used Turbo Tax for years, and felt I did a good job, but I guess I was mistaken. My friend Mike, whom I met through Scott, found deductions I didn't know I had, to the point he more than doubled my federal return, and took me from a small New York State bill to a $900 refund. This money allowed me to payoff my final short-term debt, and in addition to allowing me to increase my retirement savings beyond what I was already doing, has allowed me to build a small financial cushion. That buffer is not where it needs to be, but I only started 6 weeks ago. More important was Mike's vast pool of knowledge concerning money. When I explained to him my frustrations and my plans, he calmly gave me a starting point for my own business, based in a model I already picked out, and what to do for the long term, real estate in this case, and how to maximize my tax savings no matter what I chose. I was always focused on a particular outcome concerning a business, one that was so specific that it seemed impossible to attain. This resulted in little to no real work. Mike taught me I needed to concentrate on the right structure, so that I could meld my personal financial situation with that of my business, generating tax savings as well as profits, with profits being the secondary concern, at least for the first two years. Real estate is where the true money is made, but crawling before I walk, the business is first. Moreover, you need the numbers to work, and we're in a massive real estate bubble, worse than in 2007. There will be opportunities, but they don't exist right now. With the money I'll save and hopefully earn with the company, name to be announced shortly, I can have available capital for investment properties after the markets regress to the mean. The specifics for both phases is beyond the scope of this post, so I'll dive into these waters in a later missive. However I choose to maximize my income, I realized that I earned plenty of money, but I wasn't keeping enough of it. That must not be the case going forward. I've always thought of ways to maximize my deductions, but not like this. One of my favorite techniques was to get used furniture for free and donate it, but bedbugs killed that idea. Anyway, from the first sentence, I was floored at the simplicity of his outline, and how easy he made it for me. He also said I could make a killing as a financial aid consultant. I replied I wouldn't no how to do that, and he stated I didn't know how to charge for it. Touche'. As we were talking, I had to ask myself the following: is this what students experience when they talk to me about college? Because it sure feels that way. I was humbled and prideful at the same time.
The financial changes, both in the practical sense, and the changes to my attitudes and behaviors, would have been enough for my to stop tilting at windmills, but the professional changes are also important. By this I mean the Excelsior Scholarship, and the difference in the way I view the program.
My first encounter with Excelsior was one of dismay. Although the details were sketchy, I knew it was a rush job, and the complaints, mistakes, delays, and misinformation would cause huge pain for me and my coworkers. Also, there was an existential crisis, at least for me. The good I do in this job seemed to disappear overnight, leaving me as nothing more than a paper pushing bureaucrat with no real value or purpose. I may have been that already, but I did feel there were times when I truly helped people, whether it was a friend trying to fix her defaulted student loan and return to school, or an overwhelmed family trying to make sense of competing scholarship offers from different colleges, wondering which one was the best choice. This wouldn't completely disappear, but it would be a tiny fraction instead of my main focus. The college would need financial aid less, I reasoned, since New York was paying the bills en masse. It was depressing all around.
So why do I feel differently as I write this? The training in Corning did nothing to allay my fears. If anything, the trip had worse news than I expected. There wasn't enough money to fully fund the program; as a result, there would be a lottery; returning students had priority; the academic standards were draconian, and the application wouldn't be ready until June. I digested this news over three days, using what free time I had to walk. Corning is small, but well-preserved, and made for pedestrians. I could traverse the 3.5 miles from my hotel to the conference if I felt ambitious, without any break in the sidewalks. I'm dedicated to my health, but not that much. In any event, multiple lengthy strolls and long talks with my boss gave me the chance to reflect. I knew there was something I wasn't quite understanding about the situation, but I couldn't place my finger on it. It hit me days later when I realized I was looking at this the wrong way. I was obsessing over the increased number of applications and students we'd need to service. I imagined the frantic calls from parents, from schools, churches, even the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks could call me for all I knew, all of whom realized they'd been sold a bill of goods. I'd probably want to organize an info session for the all the junior EMT corps throughout Westchester. I though of all the extra work required, all the other people at the college I'd need to speak with, explaining this mess. I wasn't depressed any longer; I was despondent. Then it hit me: Excelsior wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to financial aid - it was the best! The power of this realization almost caused me to drive off the road, but once I regained my bearings, I understood that everything that made the program a disaster was a golden, nay, platinum opportunity for me and my colleagues. This isn't an aid program gone wrong; it's a work of fucking art. It is so beautiful in its malformation, so perfect in its imperfection, so genius in its stupidity, so rapturous in the pain it will inflict on all of us, that it can be described no other way but art. In a flash, the prospect of being replaced by computers wasn't an issue. Excelsior would need humans looking at applications, transcripts, and tax information. It would also require humans to explain to people why they aren't getting the program, or more accurately, why they aren't getting the program any more, which will be a much larger issue. Someone will need to speak to high schools, civic organizations, and other people at the college, explaining this nonsense. Well, who better than someone who is an excellent public speaker, adept at breaking down arcane financial aid regulations into something more easily understood, and just happened to be at the only training available for the entire state, because he felt like paying for it out of pocket, well before this program was even an (awful) idea? Wow, I'm getting all tingly as I type this. I'm not screwed; I'm saved. I'm already getting calls from Westchester high schools asking for my help. I now have more opportunity to do good, thanks to how they slapped this program together. Even better, the overtime will flow once more as we try to help the innumerable applicants who think they're going to school for free. They're not, obviously, though some will benefit, at least in the beginning. There's even the chance we'll get another counselor, but that's probably not going to happen. I'll take the overtime and run. Albany did fix a few things, but it's still an unwieldy mess, and it's still going to save my job. The best (or the worst?) part was that there was a right way to do this, as I mentioned in an earlier post: max out TAP, then go get lunch. If that had happened, then I'd be looking for PA programs throughout the United States, medical schools in the Caribbean, and taking 12 credits a semester. My bank account, physical health, social life, and girlfriend thank you Gov. Cuomo. Well done.
The final change was one that occurred and built up over the space of two years. I fell in love with a wonderful woman, Carolyn. She does not agree with my and Scott's gloomy predictions, and she certainly doesn't agree with me being a Republican. Nevertheless, we're together, and where she is, I will be as well. As such, any notion of going offshore is gone. I still subscribe to certain podcasts, read certain newsletters, and I would go to Simon Black's next conference in a heartbeat, but I stand with her, and if that means I must deal with the fallout of an economic and social collapse up close, then so be it. I'm taking the steps needed to be of use when this occurs: becoming and volunteering as an EMT, developing relationships within the first responder community, improving my health, getting my finances in order and deploying that money to insure I have the supplies and skills needed for a major crisis, and helping others get themselves ready. If Carolyn was more amenable to going abroad, then I would take additional steps, but it won't happen. I did get her to travel to Canada, and I'd love to take her to Greece, but that would be the extent of our wanderings.
Reviewing my posts on the subjects of expatriation and economic collapse, I'm struck at the prerequisite underpinning everything I've written. They all needed a solitary man in front of the keyboard. Did this pursuit assume I'd always be alone? Probably, yes, though I was trying to date and find a relationship. That's not the best question to ask, however. Did this goal insure I would be alone or did I use it as a shield to avoid doing the work required to develop a relationship? I did date, a little, but it never lasted until now. Not automatically for the first part, and there's some validity to the second part. Again, concentrating too much on the big issues outside of your control means you don't have to look at yourself. This leads to an even better question to ask: did both this goal and the points of view required, as well my near total lack of action, cause me to be alone? The answer is that it sure as shit didn't help. For those women who did not agree with my declarations, I must have sounded like Chicken Little at best, or a complete lunatic at worst. For those who did agree with me, or were at least willing to listen, I presented myself as someone just shouting into the wind, with no follow through. Either I didn't really believe what I was saying, or I was too weak or scared or lazy to do anything besides yapping. That's not an attractive look either way.
I've been hammering away at this post in one version or another for months. I've started, stopped, abandoned, then restarted it all over again. What made its completion possible is that I realized that this work, like any other writing, is a snapshot of conditions as they appear while you're putting pen to paper. I was looking for permanence in a world that never offered such a state. My circumstances do feel more settled, but the situations I've described above aren't fixed in amber, and the plans I'm making as a result of my suppositions may be as flawed as anything else I've undertaken. The County Executive, Rob Astorino, could veto our new contract, just as he did for the school's CSEA contract, freezing our pay for the foreseeable future, or Albany could work out the problems of Excelsior, advancing our irrelevancy. There will come a time where automation and changes to higher education will put us out to pasture; the question has always been whether or not I'll make it to my own finish line before the world of education reaches its own end - and new beginning. With what I discovered about business, the help I've gained, and my new willingness to risk failure, I'm less concerned than I have been. I feel ahead of the curve for once, being proactive rather than reactive. If I were a little more circumspect in my writing style, my posts would stand the test of time better than they do. Still, delving deeper into the psychology behind these essays, I realize now I was doing things backwards. Instead of living by principles, I was living by outcomes. Everything had to be perfect, which isn't possible. There's also the possibility that somewhere deep in my subconscious I didn't feel all the extra work was needed, or that I was so angry at myself for my innumerable mistakes that I was passive-aggressively protesting, shaking my fist at the world, hurting only myself.
None of what's written above should be interpreted to mean I'm somehow done, or that I've arrived. I cannot rest on my laurels, because I don't have any on which to plant my ass. What I do have is a start, and direction, and some self-confidence, where before I didn't. I'm happy with myself in a way I've probably never experienced before, and no matter what happens, I hold that feeling in the palm of my hand and hold it gently. I'm in love with a beautiful woman who loves me in return, and we get to build a life together, making our two separate existences into one shared experience. There's plenty of work to be done, but I have the chance to do that work, and that is a miracle for someone not 5 1/2 years ago was so obsessed with the world collapsing around him that I didn't do anything to stop the fact that I was slowly killing myself. My friends did, and brought me out of that darkness into the light, where I stand now.
At my core, I'm an academic. Whether I express that calling by speaking in front of a group of high school seniors and their families, or teach a class on using the Internet in 1998 at Shawnee Inn, is unimportant. I will always question and study and ruminate on life, and the question I'm asking as I type this is: what makes change possible for the individual? It's a fascinating subject, and with all my experiences and my relationships, I'm struck at how difficult true change really is, and I wonder if the changes I've made are real or not. I hope so. For the sake of argument, let's say that it is real, at least for now. Of everything I've just written, what was the most important change that occurred? The answer, of course, was the change in my attitudes and beliefs. Where before I saw only strife and mistakes, today I see opportunity, both for my own benefit, and the chance to help others. Changes in behavior followed, or was it the other way around? I cannot say. What made all that possible? Was the culmination of difficult personal work, healing the wounds of the past? Was it my relationship? Was it my getting older to the point I couldn't blame anyone or anything for my situation but myself? Was it all of those things combined, or was it something else entirely I cannot see at this moment? I don't know. Changes in people's circumstances happen everyday. Why do some alter course, while others are swept away by the riptides of life? I could examine this topic endlessly and never tire of the subject. Come to think of it, wouldn't that make an excellent dissertation topic for a PhD or a Master's thesis?
Nah. Now if you'll excuse me, Excelsior Shipping, my new Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) business, name suggested by Mike, needs some attention.
