The voice of a concerned student:
Financial aid mishap triggers panic

During my time at Rider I’ve found myself taking part in many traditions. There is one tradition, however, that I’m getting quite sick of: being mistreated by Student Financial Services nearly every semester.

Like many students, I can attend Rider with help from a generous scholarship and an unsubsidized Stafford loan. My parents pay for the remaining tuition, but it is my responsibility to make sure my financial aid is in order. In the middle of July, I called Student Financial Services to make sure my scholarship and loan were still intact; I was assured that nothing was out of order.

Then, on Friday, Aug. 25, with just 10 days left until move-in day, I received a letter from Rider. According to their records, I owed an outstanding balance that needed to be addressed before I moved back onto campus. The letter stated, “after subtracting estimated financial aid, you have an outstanding balance of $17,135 for the Fall 2006 term.” In other words, no financial aid had actually been subtracted, and I was being billed for an entire semester’s worth of tuition.

After a solid minute of panicking, I realized I needed to address this situation immediately. Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t access any payment records at MyInfo; the usually helpful service was shut down until Sunday. I couldn’t access the office by phone or in person because it closed at noon on Friday. So I spent that entire weekend in a state of anguish because I had no idea what had gone wrong. Feeling stressed is bad enough, but being stressed without knowing why is awful.

When MyInfo went back up, I was able to figure out that a missing tuition payment was the cause of concern, but there was still no clear reason as to why my financial aid had not been applied. Five days and several phone calls later, I received a second letter, this time telling me that Rider “forgot” to subtract my financial aid. The letter informed me of what I really owed and apologized for the confusion, but it might as well have read, “Ignore that last letter. We were just kidding!”

I know for certain that other students received similar letters, many of them with incorrect information. And while I don’t know each and every situation, I do know that we all experienced the same confusion, the same lack of communication and the same stress of having such a small window of time to tackle such a huge problem.

In defense of Student Financial Services, it was my own carelessness that caused this situation. But my error pales in comparison to the way Student Financial Services communicates with its students. We need to be informed of problems immediately, and we ought to refuse to religiously check MyInfo just to keep an eye on financial records. I want to have information that is accurate and allows a student whose finances aren’t in perfect order more than 10 days to address a problem.

The fiasco this summer tells me that Rider’s financial department is in need of a better way of reaching its students. Inaccurate letters, busy phone lines and an on-line service that doesn’t always supply the answers just aren’t cutting it for me.

—Jess Decina