Students who receive financial aid and did not complete a new confirmation process by Aug. 24, spent extra time and money getting their schedules straightened out.
As a result about 1,000 students’ schedules were purged and they were charged a $100 late registration fee.
The confirmation process is a way for the school to know what the enrollment will be in any given semester and to know exactly who is supposed to be in school.
Many problems arose not only for the students due to the confirmation of aid, but also for the financial aid office as well.
Marilyn King, associate director, said the impact to the counseling load was probably the most significant.
“The student that is required to confirm is also the very high need student that has a lot of other questions and difficulties in relation to how to pay for college,” King said.
“Our counseling load, while it always should be focused on making sure the students are accessing the money they need to pay for college, we’ve now gone the next step in trying to meet a different for the institution, i.e., is that student enrolling and staying in college?”
Financial aid personnel met recently to discuss ways to alleviate problems with the confirmation process. King said they discussed how financial aid could get students to better understand what confirmation means.
Financial aid officials have discussed instituting a formal withdrawal process for everyone as a potential situation. King said another suggestion involved requiring students to have their acceptance in within a two-week time frame or else having to re-register.

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