Financial Aid Glitch Occurs

It’s the beginning of spring term and you are at the bookstore cash register, trying to buy your books for this term. You hand over your lion card, but when the cashier swipes, your account comes up empty. You don’t have enough money left from your financial aid for books, the cashier says, and the only choice you have now is to leave the bookstore empty-handed.

This is a scenario that plays out for some financial aid students during spring term when their book stipend for the year begins to run low. The financial aid office provides each financial aid student with a stipend of $850 toward the cost of books and supplies for the year, whether they are full or partial aid recipients, according to Financial Aid Director John Hutchins. While most students are left with extra money at the end of the year, others whose courses require more books run out before they can purchase them all.

“Financial aid is an extremely and often underlooked part of life here; the cost of books from term to term varies greatly.”

The financial aid office reviews students’ financial needs every year and amends students’ aid based on their family’s current financial status.While Exeter does not make any guarantees for funding beyond what is specified on the financial aid award letter, the financial aid office does consider students’ requests for additional assistance on an individual basis, Hutchins said.

But needing to ask for more money can create uncomfortable situations for students who run low on their stipend, according to modern languages instructor Inna Sysevich, whose advisee found himself in this situation at the end of last year. When Sysevich’s advisee approached the financial aid office, he was asked for receipts to prove he spent his money on books. Since he had thrown his receipts away, he decided to borrow books from other students for the term, a difficult task for an upper.

“It was embarrassing for the kid to get back and tell them he ran out as if he was responsible for the lack of money,” Sysevich said. However, Sysevich was impressed by how quickly the financial aid office got back to the student and reimbursed him after his request.

“[Running out of money is] not a huge problem if it can be fixed relatively promptly, considering how busy the financial aid office is during the spring,” Sysevich said. The first few weeks of spring can be one of the busiest times for the financial aid office since a new class of students has just been enrolled.

According to Hutchins, providing financial aid students with unlimited resources would not be financially feasible or sustainable for Exeter. The financial office is not able to track students’ purchases and relies on the honor system for students to use their financial award only on items that are required for school.

One issue with the school’s current system, according to CFO David Hanson, is that students cannot “price shop” (explore other vendors for lower prices) because the stipend they receive only goes to the bookstore. Hanson mentioned, though, that because the school’s contract with Barnes and Noble is set to end soon, he is using this opportunity to try and find ways to possibly allow students to shop at other places such as Amazon or Staples that might offer them a better deal.

This brings up the same problem with the honor system, though, because the financial aid office would not be able to track whether or not students were only using Amazon or Staples to buy supplies needed for school.

But even without being able to price shop, students on financial aid usually find a way around the stipend if they run out, due to the generous endowment to the financial aid program by alumni.

Exeter provides approximately $19,000,000 in need-based financial aid in the form of assistance toward tuition and fees, books and supplies, computers, tablets, travel assistance, health insurance and other miscellaneous costs for the 46 percent of the student body which receives financial aid. According to Hanson, in cases of emergencies, there is always some money left over in the financial aid endowment.

For some students, this extra money left over in the endowment made the difference for them this year. One student, who wished to remain anonymous, commented on his experience with the office and his gratefulness for the office providing him the extra push.

“Financial aid is an extremely and often underlooked part of life here; the cost of books from term to term varies greatly,” the student said. “This year, I was not able to purchase all my books with financial aid money, but the office was kind enough to step in and help make up the difference.” However, according to the student, this wasn’t the case for everyone.

Another student, who also wished to remain anonymous, was not able to purchase an expensive history book because there was not enough financial aid on his or her card. Instead of turning to the financial aid office, the student’s friend who had leftover financial aid money bought the book for him or her.

Financial aid problems do not just affect financial aid students. According to the manager of the bookstore, Marilyn Miller, when students run out of money—a problem she sees recurring each spring—they usually do not make the discovery prior to buying books.

As a result, the “spring term book rush” is typically the time where students make this realization. Miller said that when students discover their insufficient funds in the line of the bookstore, the book buying process can slow down for everyone.

“This tends to slow down the processing time at the registers,” she said. “Students get up to the register and if their financial aid doesn’t cover the purchase, and they don’t have money on their Lion Card, they have to come up with an alternate payment method.”​

For now, running out of financial aid money remains a problem students will have to continue to deal with, but some faculty provided insight for possible solutions. Sysevich hopes her idea could potentially solve the problem.

“I wish the financial aid office could create a system that would regulate what students purchase and cover the student automatically if they ran out of money,” she said. “This way students wouldn’t have to worry about the price of books at all.”