Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Hitting a Brick Wall: running out of money

Hit a Brick Wall this quarter. A major error, the fault of financial aid and my academic counselor has put my entire med School plan in limbo. After meeting with my advisor last year in the Spring, I changed from a nursing school track to a medical school track. My student plan was not officially approved of by my advisor so financial aid balked at giving me money. With nursing school plan officially in place from my first year, taking prereqs for medical school appeared unnecessary to the school, fin aid and the federal govt. In addition two other major errors occurred, one the fault of financial themselves...a digital record keeping Redford, the second my fault in wrongly declaring I did not have a prior bachelors degree. These two internal document issues along with having a derth of an academic plan has put my academic train into a screeching hault, literally. I am taking classes but I have NO MONEY to function with or live on, not even gas money to get to school or pay bridge tolls at $30/week. Really tough times. My folks are strapped for cash also pending  a lawsuit against a client for nonpayment, so they can't help me out either in the interim period while fin aid gets things sorted out.
   Just this morning I was told it would take up to 4 weeks to process my new 2 year  academic plan. I can't survive that long, eating air and driving on fumes to school. I might be saved by the fact that I have a part time tutoring job that pays every two weeks, 12 hrs/wk. It might just save my bacon.
  Needless to say, I'm running on fumes right now with a lot of doubt about my future. Really sucks.I'm trying to get ahead and being shut down for it. The whole economic situation of the Fed. Govt and state govt budget cuts has created a trickle down atmosphere of service denials along the lines of students. Students are getting the short end of the stick. People who can't compete, or are not proactive are losing out and are being denied access to education. Education is becoming a luxury only those with money can afford. When air got my bachelors, I never once had problems like this returning to the financial aid office repeatedly. Now it is like pulling teeth and butt kissing to appease those in positions of power. I'm doing what I need to do as a student, but in my particular case, fin aid and my advisor dropped the ball. They also are being forthright with information such as, loans are only approved for one....I heard that for the first time today. I already talked with my advisor last year about my long term plans over 2 and she never mentioned this. It is extremely important for a student in my position with a prior bachelors. As a student I can only work with the information  I am given.
  There is another wrinkle in the situation. The college is forcing me to declare a specific associates degree in Biology instead of just taking prereqs courses. This is a political novel from my perspective. They will get my tuition money anyways whether I have a declared major or not, so why they want an officially declared program is beyond me. What I gather is that Sith state/federal budget cuts, the govt only wants to give money to students with a declared major.
  For those like me transitioning to a new career, it puts us in a lurch, because we can't take course to transfer to bonafide medical programs without declaring a degree track program.
  In addition, my college doesn't have an official pre-med program for peoplelike me, just an Associates in Biology, which doesn't include an entire year of required Physics for applying to med School. I will have to pay for an entire year of physics courses on my own even after I get an Associates in Bio. I gotta start planning now on how to pay for that. I want to take my summers off to take an EMT course or CNA course to begin working getting job experience.
  Well all for now. I had a day off from school, but still had to go in to meet with my advisor and deliver my official plan to fin aid.

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