I am a junior at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Every year there is an issue with the process of Financial Aid. The staff there are unprofessional, to say the least. Their communication skills this year are at an all time low. The process of receiving our aid hasn’t made any progress. We are almost a month into school and a majority of students haven’t received anything. When we do get in contact with staff(after being on hold for hours/waiting in long lines) it’s almost as if they are saying anything just to get us out of the way. The problem is never solved in one phone call. We’re forced to call over and over again for weeks on end and as you can imagine, it is very stressful. 

 A lot of students depend on their refund check for livelihood. The unnecessarily extended process of receiving our money puts us in tricky situations and leaves a lot of students to “fend for themselves”. A good portion of this money is needed to purchase textbooks to be as proactive in class as possible, and being almost a month in school, we can’t even do that. Our academics are put in jeopardy and besides calling a million times, there’s nothing a student can do about it. 

 There needs to be immediate change to the procedure, and who handles it. The wait time to receive our aid is unacceptable, especially when the issue isn’t in our hands. FAMU’s Office of Financial Aid needs to be held accountable for their actions or lack thereof!