This is my fifth year at Portland State and hopefully my last, at least for my undergraduate career.
For the most part, my journey through college has been smooth enough, but there have definitely been some bumps in the road. Many of these bumps have come in the form of financial issues. Maybe calling them potholes on the road to success is more accurate.
However you want to look at it, the fact remains that dealing with money as a college student is frustrating, scary and sometimes depressing. I know I don’t like seeing those emails telling me how much debt I’ve accrued so far, and you probably don’t either.
I had such a wonderfully unpleasant experience with PSU over summer term. I had a hold put on my registration, which I’m sure many of you are familiar with, because I didn’t pay off my summer balance at the end of summer term.
As a student who doesn’t receive financial aid for summer term, I didn’t have the means to pay off the entirety of my balance with my personal money alone. My plan was to wait for my financial aid to come in and help me out so I could take care of whatever balance I had remaining. But here’s where things started getting tricky.
Before the hold was put on my account, I had registered for four credits. I didn’t know that you have to be registered for at least six credits to receive any financial aid whatsoever. So here I am, trying to start my final year as an undergrad at PSU, and I’ve only registered for four credits, which means no financial aid, which means I have to tack on two more credits. But I can’t do that because there’s a hold on my registration, which means, what the hell am I supposed to do now? The first step is to call Student Accounts.
When I first called Student Accounts, the only thing I got was more annoyed. The person I talked to over the phone didn’t help me out in the least. The only thing I was able to grasp from the phone conversation was that, essentially, PSU doesn’t trust me enough to let me register for classes. Because the financial aid I had for fall 2014 wasn’t enough—as far as they saw—to cover my fall balance and my summer balance, the hold could not be lifted.
Let’s just say the phone call ended with me letting the Student Accounts representative know that they were not doing a very good job.
I called back a few minutes later (because they hung up on me, no joke) to try and get through to a supervisor. Unfortunately for me, no supervisor was available. Luckily for me though, I got a different, much more helpful rep who helped me understand the registration agreement process.
The registration agreement basically says that you promise to use the financial aid you receive to pay off the balance from your previous term. Well yeah, PSU, that’s what I intended to do the entire time, so why do you have to make me jump through hoops?
I thought this was a university that cared about its students’ educations and well-being, not some corporate bank. I shouldn’t have to hurdle obstacle after obstacle to sign my name on a contract promising the university that I’m going to do something I’ve been trying to do all along.
Recently, I’ve been hearing about this new Four-Year Degree Guarantee that PSU has come out with. Here are the main points, as described on the web page.
Full-time freshmen starting at PSU in fall 2014 have to submit their Four-Year Degree Guarantee agreement. New undergraduates have to attend orientation where they register for their first courses. PSU urges new freshmen to attend the earliest orientation session in order to be able to meet up with an adviser from their major.
Students that decide to sign up for the Four-Year Degree Guarantee program must earn a minimum of 45 credits per year, maintain good standing and satisfy the requirements outlined by their major’s degree map. PSU will provide academic advising and the required courses each year.
Students are able to change majors and continue on in the Four-Year Degree Guarantee program, but only if they can still meet the graduation requirements for their new major in four years. If students meet all the requirements of the program but are still unable to graduate within four years,PSU will not charge them tuition for any courses needed to complete their degrees.
Did you read that last part correctly? Are you sure? Because it’s telling you that these new students won’t pay for any year after their fourth. I’m sorry PSU, but where’s our guarantee? What about the rest of us that the video on your website pretends to care about by throwing out the fact that the average college student will leave school with $24,000 of debt?
I’m in my fifth year and instead of guaranteeing that I won’t pay for it, you’re making me go to unnecessary lengths to make sure you get to collect your money from me. That seems unfair, don’t you think?
Don’t get me wrong though, congratulations to all you new undergrads. Hopefully this will inspire more people to pursue higher education. I just think it’s a little backwards that the rest of us still have to have PSU’s hands in our wallets.
It’s sad because PSU is a beautiful university with wonderful faculty. But I cannot stand the business side of this school because it’s too much like, well, a business.
