During both the fall and spring semesters, Santa Fe College has been unable to disperse allotted financial aid funds to their students, causing months of stress and panic.
This week marked a breakthrough in the state college's effort to get the funds to those who need them.
Over $3 million in aid was distributed in the past week, with $342,000 dispersed into students’ accounts on Wednesday, according to the assistant to the President at Santa Fe, Jay Anderson.
Some students rely on financial aid to pay for their homes, take care of their children and pay their bills. Money can be tight for students trying to juggle finances without support.
“I quit my job to go to school because they don't recommend that you work, they don't support us working full-time or anything like that. I have two kids so it's been pretty stressful not having what I assumed would be there,” Santa Fe nursing student Jessica Granade said.
In an email from Santa Fe’s financial aid department, the cause of the failed dispersal of funds was accredited to “a series of disruptions following the implementation of a new financial aid processing system requiring extensive computer programming to integrate the new system with the data in the College's current system.”
Granade had back surgery in the fall and was unable to work during her recovery. She says paying for hospital bills has drained most of her savings. This unforeseen circumstance caused Granade to be heavily reliant on financial aid to survive.
“It's just kind of been a really up and down roller coaster. They’re not saying a whole lot, but I also am not sure if they know a whole lot. I don’t think they actually knew what was happening,” Granade said.
While Granade says she doesn’t suspect Santa Fe to be withholding information, other students say they have lost trust in the school.
Santa Fe student Colin Curry just had his first panic attack in 39 years. On top of exams, bills and life in general, Curry says he feels the students who have not received financial aid are doing things in “hard mode.”
Although the college is assuring students that their funds should come in by the end of next week, many students are having a hard time finding confidence in the administration's message.
Student Angela Acevedo, 29, is frustrated with the situation and wants answers.
“They haven’t really been transparent with us. We keep thinking it's a technical issue with their system, but they’re not really telling us exactly what happened,” Acevedo said.
Santa Fe and the Florida Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance are at a standstill, pointing fingers at each other.
“I made a complaint to FAFSA on behalf of Santa Fe, but they said it was not an issue on their end and that they’re not sure why our school has not dispersed the money,” Acevedo said.
Like Granade, Acevedo is facing struggles with maintaining her job. She is working minimum hours and draining her paid time off in order to stay employed. This led her to max out all of her credit cards and take out emergency loans. Now, she is swimming in bills, trying to stay afloat.
On Saturday, Santa Fe emailed those awaiting aid, saying, “President Broadie reallocated additional funds to support students facing notable hardships.”
Students were then prompted to fill out an emergency aid grant application. The funds are first come, first served and are being dispersed to those who are in need of it most, as many are facing eviction notices and dropping classes.
The grant offers a maximum of $500 and must be accepted through a third party.
“You can’t even accept the money yourself which I thought was so sketchy. Like why? I don’t understand why you need to have a third party accept it that doesn’t make sense, I’ve never heard of that before,” Acevedo said. “Not to mention $500 only covers the access code needed for Pearson in nursing school. This is a joke,” she continued.
Some financially drowning students feel they were thrown a raft with a hole in it. Still, the school is assuring them that “Santa Fe College’s Information Technology Systems (ITS) is continuing to make progress on the technical error and is asking that the college community be flexible and show empathy to those who are still awaiting their account access to be returned.”
In light of the situation, the college has temporarily lifted restrictions in recognition of the impact of financial aid delays. Lisa Brosky, associate vice president of marketing and communications at Santa Fe, attributed the mess to the use of a new financial aid processing system.
“For most of our existence, Santa Fe has used a financial aid processing system that we created in house and it has worked great, but in recent years FAFSA and all these federal regulations have changed, so we decided to integrate a state of the art financial processing system used by colleges across the country," Brosky said. "What happened was the new system wasn’t talking to the old system which is what the college has been working on all this time."
Since the old and new systems were not working in sync, according to Brosky, reconciling the funds has become a fully manual process which is why its dispersal has been significantly slowed.
“We were able to bring in outside experts to support our team of experts and we feel like we’re moving very confidently toward full resolution,” Brosky said.
She assures doubtful students that the college never stopped trying to fix the problem and said the college has been working day and night to resolve it.
Students like Granade, Curry and Acevedo are still wondering how much longer they can hold out, with looming payments putting great strain on their lives.
Anderson and Brosky say that the college is close to a fix, adding that they have been making advances in the past week.
“Some of the technical issues we were having between the new financial aid software we acquired to address federal changes and our older system are making progress, which may streamline the process,” Anderson wrote.
Anderson expects a considerable update in the next few days and said that federal and state aid, as well as institutional and foundation scholarships, should be in many students' accounts soon.
In an attempt to ease the mind of these struggling students and answer some questions, on Thursday Santa Fe sent out a FAQ regarding the situation.
The college said it was “pleased to report that the disbursement of student financial aid is making steady progress, and students will continue to see updates to their accounts and are urging students to frequently check their financial aid portals for updates."
As students continue to grapple with financial uncertainty, Brosky acknowledges their frustrations and assures them this will not become a regular occurrence.
“Santa Fe college recognizes and deeply regrets that our students are facing financial hardships associated with these delayed financial aid payments,” Brosky said. “We do not anticipate having these issues moving forward.”