Current financial aid dispersement raises fees, harms students

Monday, September 22, 1997 Current financial aid dispersement
raises fees, harms students FINANCIAL AID: Emergency loans only a
stop-gap solution, shouldn’t be blamed for students’ problems

By Erin Mills

While helping out with family orientation earlier this summer, I
began to realize the stress that parents and students have about
paying student fees and housing amounts by the deadlines. By saying
"began to realize," what I should be saying is "I was forced to
realize" by several screaming, crying parents trying come to terms
with the fact that their baby was actually going to become
"independent" in a few short weeks. This "independence," however,
has quite a price, as many students depend on their families to
financially assist them through this transition.

The problem is this: there is a gap between the housing and
student fees deadlines and when financial aid is dispersed through
the BAR accounts (SBAR, for those of you who do not deal well with
change.) It is this gap that is the cause of much stress for both
families and students.

Now, what most of the people at family orientation did not know
about was the infamous emergency loan. You know, those loans that
many of the 22,000 students at UCLA on financial aid have to get in
order to front the money that is due. I’m sure I don’t need to
explain that to most of you because there are only 35,000 students
at UCLA to begin with, so a large percentage of you already
understand what I am talking about.

The thing with the emergency loan is that it actually causes
student fees to rise in the long run because we are paying for the
paperwork and several extra people to work at above minimum wage in
the loan office and data entry, not to mention all of the payback
processing and billing. Does that make sense to you?

Student fees are rising so that more students can afford an
education. Despite the fact that this is a problematic way to
finance an education because of the extra burden it creates, we as
students are forced to go through with it because most of us do not
have a few extra thousand dollars lying around to pay such large
bills (which is exactly the reason why we are on financial aid in
the first place.)

Some of you are probably sitting there thinking, "Let me get
this straight, Erin. When I get my emergency loan, I am actually
making education harder to obtain for future and current Bruins? Oh
my God, I am the reason education is unaffordable!"

Not to worry, you are not the sole reason behind unaffordable
education. The larger problem at hand here is that our local, state
and national leadership is ignoring and denying many educational
goals at state and national levels. (In other words, I am not
pointing a finger at you because you are stuck between a rock and a
hard place.)

Our leadership, however is not. Even USAC has the power to
improve our situation. In fact, they are obligated as our elected
leaders.

I should point out that student fees actually work against the
educational goals of California, since by the Master Plan of
Education, all Californians are entitled to receive a tuition-free
education, and the last time I checked, student fees are the same
thing as tuition.

Now I’m not proposing that California could afford to send us
all here for free, and God forbid we should have the Senate and
Governor debating over any other budgets after the last annual
debate. (I mean, many Californians are still trying to recover from
their last budget delays; why would I wish any further problems
upon this state and people?) I am, however, suggesting that
Californian government at least own up to the fact that we pay a
tuition whether we call it that or not. It is humiliating and an
insult to us as a state to say that we do not. Our leadership
should be ensuring that our voices are heard on this.

On a national level, even the most recent goals for education
are being denied. The Department of Education’s Strategic Plan for
1998-2002 lists the third goal regarding access to post-secondary
education and life-long learning as providing "effective program
management to ensure that our federal student financial aid
programs are efficiently administered and cost effective."

Does "efficiently administered" include a program fueled by a
large gap between due dates and dispersements? Does "cost
effective" include a program that indirectly requires students to
raise their own fees because of the loans they take out to cover
their bills? No.

Now I don’t want all of you reading this to get depressed and
start feeling that both the state and nation are out to get you.
This is far from the case. Both levels of government have so many
committees and systems that focus on financial aid that it is
almost impossible to understand why there are any problems that are
not being addressed. In fact, the Congress created The Advisory
Committee on Student Financial Assistance and there are several
proposals regarding financial aid processes that are currently
being debated to make education more affordable and financial aid
more accessible. (for those of you who are up to date, this is
known as "reauthorization").

What I do want all of you to think about is that we need strong
leadership to impressing our needs and issues upon our state and
national officials. And for those of you in USAC offices that are
actually in the position to mobilize the student population, we
need your guidance. After all, you did increase your stipends, and
I, for one, hope that the raise will encourage you to do something
that affects every student on this campus.

Be the student mobilizers that you claim to be, do the grass
roots organizing you take pride in, but most of all, lead us in an
issue that truly affects us and has been neglected.