The Battle

When we last left our intrepid hero...

So the battle has been fought, and here's the story. It's a long one, so buckle in.

When I got to campus on Thursday, I didn't have any responses in my email from anyone in financial aid. As it was a Thursday, I had to teach, so it's not like I could just sit around the office all day or go over to their office, even though I was on campus -- as an instructor, I do have a schedule and responsibilities, no matter how much I am preoccupied. Before I went to teach, I updated my friend Parker on the experience up to that point. He told me if I needed to go over there, he'd come with me in the spirit of camaraderie and moral support.

I returned to my office at 12:30 or so to find an email, finally, from the financial aid people. It said, simply, that my loans hadn't dropped because I am enrolled in a class I've taken and passed twice before, and they won't cover/count it as part of my schedule.

There are at least three things wrong with that explanation. Yes, I am enrolled once more in the Visiting Writer class, which I have taken twice before and passed; that much is correct. However, it is that class which is keeping me at full time hours for the English Department, I don't need it to graduate and am taking it for my own desires/edification, and with my GTAship, I am already full-time for the department. My unsubsidized Stafford loan, as mentioned before, is not need-based, which means it shouldn't matter how many classes I'm taking or which ones -- the loan corporation has already bestowed said money to me; it's the university's job to deposit it, apply it to my student fees and the like, and give me the rest back in a direct deposit to my bank account.

Therefore, this email didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me (it would later, but I'll get to that).

"Want to head over there?" I asked Parker when I found him. "It is, apparently, a mess."

"Of course," he said. "Let's go."

So we went. I explained to him, on the way, what the email had said. He agreed with me that it sounded like a weak excuse.

"Besides," he added, "the fact is that you've already gotten the first half of it in the fall. So, I really don't understand it either."

"Exactly," I said. "So I'll have to re-explain everything to them again and have them work on my account again, I suppose."

We got to the financial aid office a little after 1:30 PM. There was a line. In fact, it was very much like a doctor's office -- you sign in on a clipboard, and when they have someone available, they come out and call your name. There were at least three or four people waiting already, and that many more came and signed up on the sheet while I was there.

"Want me to stick around?" Parker asked. "I mean, obviously I can't go in there with you, but at least I can keep you company here for a while."

"It's up to you," I said. I didn't want to keep him there any longer than he wanted to be; it had been cool enough of him to come over with me for moral support and conversation.

"I can stick around for a while," he said. "I don't have anywhere in particular to be right now."

And he did. We discussed class stuff; he's taking the editing class that I took last spring, the one where I made a sixty-page syllabus/mock lesson plan. I told him he'd have a blast; that was one of the most enjoyable classes I've taken at the university.

To their credit, the financial aid people move fast. I only had to wait about twenty minutes at the most before, finally, they came out and called my name. I bid Parker farewell, and he returned to his office. I went into the financial aid office and steeled myself for battle.

I explained the situation to the nice lady who helped me -- she was about my age, give or take a year, and she pulled up my account.

"Yeah, you're enrolled for this class when you've taken it and passed it twice before," she said. "Financial aid won't cover it, so your loan money hasn't dropped because of that."

"I realize I've taken it twice in the past before, yes," I said, "but this is my last semester. I'm graduating. I'm taking it to, really, fill hours so that I stay full-time within the English Department. I don't need it to graduate, I just need something there in that spot."

"While I understand that," she said, "because you've taken it twice before, it nullifies itself this time around -- the system's based on what you've taken and the course numbers. Right now, because of that, it only shows you at three hours on the schedule."

"Okay," I said, "but this is a Stafford unsub loan. It's not need-based, and I've already gotten half of it in the fall, so--"

"It doesn't matter," she said. "All financial aid has to come through hours on schedule and full/half time status first before any funds can be disbursed, no matter where they come from."

"Okay. I understand that. So, really, my question is, what do I have to do to fix this, to ensure that I get that money to come in?"

"Well, you could register for another class," she said. "That's about all I can tell you. Until you're classified as at least half-time hours for a graduate student, that loan money won't be disbursed. That's an automatic, in-the-system thing."

"I don't need any more classes, though," I said. "This is my last semester; the other three hours in addition to that filler hours course are my thesis hours. I graduate in May, and have all of my courses covered."

Let's step back from this for a minute before I continue -- financial aid is telling me to, basically, spend more money for a class I don't need in order to graduate (which I'm already doing anyway, hence the extra visiting writer course), any course, just so that I can get money that has already been loaned to me to actually disburse to my account. Yes, I could sign up for another class, any class, and just not attend it/never do anything for it, as it wouldn't hurt or help me in any way since I have everything at this point covered -- but that is, frankly, asking me to pay $900 or so to the university for no real reason whatsoever. It would be just to get my loan money to come through. That's fucking stupid.

"Wait a minute," she said. "You're in thesis hours?"

"Yep. I had the first half of them in the fall. I finish them this semester, as I graduate."

"Aha!" she said, a smile spreading across her face. "Then you're saved. I'm in the exact same situation you are right now. I can fix this."

"Hm?"

"The only exception to that hours rule is if you're a graduate student working on a thesis. I'm in the same situation you are. What you need is to get an exemption form from downstairs and fill it out, and they'll list you as at least half-time -- it's really just a box we check on the back of the form."

See? I told you, I knew it.

Except, as you may recall, I was told in December that I was "good to go," and didn't need any exemptions. I filled out one of those forms and turned it in then, and they sent it back, canceling it, telling me I didn't need it. That was the lady who dealt with my account there then who told me I didn't need anything.

"I had you folks look at my account in December and I was told I didn't need an exemption," I said.

"Oh? Who told you that then?"

I gave her the name of the lady who worked on my account in December. It was the same one who I'd emailed before I contacted the financial aid department directly, and -- I might add -- someone who never got back to me about any of that stuff.

She looked back down at my account on her computer. "Yeah, everything else is good here. Just go downstairs, fill out that exemption form, and take it to the graduate school. What it'll do is tell the graduate school that you need to be at least half-time for financial aid purposes, and they'll put it through. However, it could take a few days for anything to happen with your actual loan money. It depends on how quickly it's approved and put into the system. As soon as that happens, everything should transfer as normal."

I sighed a huge sigh of relief, thanked her profusely, and left. I got the forms, getting an extra in case I screwed up the first one, and went back to my office -- where I filled them out and had the department chair, who adores me, sign off on them. I walked back over to the graduate school (it's in the same building as financial aid), and turned it in by hand so that it would get processed ASAP.

"I have an exception form here," I said, "so that my student loans can drop and I can eat."

The secretary laughed, and told me she'd put it in that afternoon. Relieved, I returned to my office.

"It's done," I told Parker. "Or, at least it's in the process of being done." I gave him the brief rundown of the events that had unfolded, in as uncomplicated way as possible, and thanked him for coming over there with me. "Now," I added, "I'm going home."

It was maybe 3PM by this time. I was tired, I'd taught my classes for the day, and usually on a Thursday I'll be home by around 1PM at the latest. I'd walked to and from financial aid and the graduate school twice, and even though it wasn't a long distance (maybe 500 yards), it was cold and I'd been on my feet all day. All I wanted to do was get home, get something to eat, tell Daisy of my ordeal, and go to bed.

I arrived home with no incident, with what felt like a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders. I was tired, but I was in good spirits. I sat down at the computer and sent a message to Daisy -- and it was then my phone rang.

Oh no, nonono, it's not over yet, folks.

The phone was the graduate school, not financial aid -- which didn't necessarily surprise me, really, but I once more braced myself for bad news.

"Well, Brandon," the lady on the phone said, "I've reviewed your account, and you work 20 hours a week as a GTA, correct?"

"Yep," I said, still bracing.

"Well, you don't need this exemption then; that counts as full-time on its own."

Sigh. They didn't get it.

"According to financial aid, I do," I told the lady on the phone. "I have the other half of a student loan that won't drop until I'm listed as at least half-time. I'm in my final semester; I'm working on my thesis and I graduate in May, and I've fulfilled all of my requirements for graduation, so I don't need to take any more classes, nor do I need to do anything else for graduation but take my comprehensive exams and turn in my thesis."

I made sure I hit all of the important beats. It was almost like I'd rehearsed for this. Well, I sort of had -- after all, I'd explained this situation to no less than five different people both inside and outside my department for the better part of the past week.

"Ohhhh," she said. "I see, I get it. Okay. We can do that. But I'll tell you this -- I can file this exemption and it'll go to the graduate school dean, but he's not going to act on it until you do two things first."

Here we go, I thought. This can't be good.

"First thing," she said, continuing, "you need to file the application for degree if you're graduating this semester. You can do that online. It's a $15 fee, but it's really fast and easy to do."

"Okay," I said. "I can do that tonight, no worries."

"Good; once you do that, it'll pop up in my system here at the graduate school and I'll see it. The second thing is that we don't have a plan of study on file for you."

Shit. I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass.

I had planned to file my plan of study at the end of last semester, before the break started, because I've already covered all of my requirements and the like. I'd even filled it out, listing all of my classes and my grades in them, etc. I'd just never actually filed it -- the end of the semester, what with collecting/grading papers, administering and grading the final exam, and taking care of all of the stuff for Playwriting and the Surrealism course -- all of that crushing work took over, and my plan of study got pushed to the bottom of the pile. When break started and I was traveling for more than half of it, I sort of forgot about it. My bad. No, really, that one's on me. Totally on me.


"I have it ready," I said. "I meant to file it last semester before break, but never had the chance before I left town."

"Well, good. That's not due to us until next month, but I can tell you now the dean isn't going to act on this exemption until there's one on file for you."

"I can have it in there as early as tomorrow morning, and if not tomorrow Monday at the latest," I said.

This is because filing the plan of study is a bit more difficult than one might think; one has to get the director of the program to sign off on it, get an advisor signature, get it copied and on file within the department, and then send it over to the graduate school. This is a process that can, at times, take days. I don't have days. Even more troubling was that it was Thursday night, and there was no guarantee that my advisor/director(s) would be in to campus on Friday -- I had to be there for mandatory GTA meetings (with yet another dean, actually), but who knows what administrative staff would be there, as the English Department doesn't hold classes on Fridays.

"Okay, once you get that in, everything should be fine," she said.

"I'll apply for the degree tonight and will get the plan of study over to you as soon as I possibly can," I said. "Thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."

Once more my stress levels and blood pressure were spiked. Something else to do, something to gum up the works a little bit more, slow things down a little bit more, give me more headaches. I talked to Daisy for about an hour or so, but still couldn't properly de-stress. I wasn't feeling well, I needed to eat, and I was exhausted. She encouraged me to just eat and go to sleep, but I told her that before I could do that, I had to file the application for degree.

"Do that then," she said. "If you can't get your mind off of everything until it's all done, then just do it so you can relax and feel better."

I was inclined to agree -- so that's what I did. I made food, and once that was done I sat down and applied for my degree. It took about fifteen minutes; there's a questionnaire that one has to plow through before they'll let you actually submit the application -- but once you do that, it's a simple one-click process, they charge you $15 (I put it on my Citi Card), and give you a printable receipt. I printed two: one for my records, and the other to take to the graduate school to prove that yes, I'd filed my application for degree. One thing down, I thought.

The plan of study was a bit trickier. I would have to have a lot of luck to get that processed and completely finished on a Friday, as mentioned before. I sent an email to my advisor, who is not only the interim director of the entire MFA program but someone I haven't seen in about two months, and explained my situation (again, to yet another colleague). I asked her if she wasn't going to be there on Friday who else could sign off on the plan of study to get it filed ASAP, and asked a few other small minor questions to make sure I was filling it all out correctly. I told her I was asking who could sign off on it because if she wasn't going to be there, there was no way I would ask her to come to campus to sign a simple sheet of paper -- not only would that be stupid, but incredibly inconsiderate of her time and her own life. My hope was that she would read the email that night, and I would have a response by the morning -- but that's all I could do. Crossing my proverbial fingers and hoping for the best, my stress levels slowly decreased over the course of a few hours, and even more exhausted than before, I ate my dinner and tried not to think about things.

Two hours later, as I was readying for bed, I (unexpectedly) received a reply from my advisor. Yes, she would be in on Friday morning around 9, and would be happy to help get everything taken care of and filed -- and even apologized that I had to go through such a mess when I'm just trying to get my money, live my life, and graduate. I sent a message to Parker to tell him, and sent a message to Daisy as well, before turning on the electric blanket, setting my alarm, and going to bed.

The electric blanket is an awesome invention, by the way. Daaaaaaaamn.

Ahem. Anyway.

The next morning, I got up at my normal time of 5AM. It felt like a regular day to me, even though it wasn't -- I had no less than three meetings to attend on Friday, and I had to take care of the plan of study stuff, get it copied and signed, and then taken to the graduate school. It was going to be a long, stressful day, but hopefully a day of reckoning.

I got to campus around 7:10, and immediately went about making sure everything I needed to do was done. I took my time; the first meeting wouldn't be until 10AM, and my advisor wasn't supposed to be there until around 9. I made sure I did everything correctly, made coffee, and tried to wake up a bit more -- 7AM on a Friday means that campus, especially that department, is a ghost town. I felt like an extra in I Am Legend. People slowly started to filter in; office staff, a few fellow grad students, directors of various programs, etc. Around 9:10, my advisor showed up, checked over my plan of study, and once she verified that it was perfectly filled out, she signed off on it, I had the copies of it made, and I took it again, by hand, over to the graduate school around 9:30.

The lady on the phone the night before gave me her name -- she told me exactly where to go when I came in, in order to find her. I found her quickly.

"Got your plan?" she asked.

"Got it all here," I said, smiling.

"Great," she said. "I saw you filed your application for degree as well, so that's already here in the system. I'll make sure this gets a memo on it and it processed quickly so that you don't have any more waiting than you have to."

"I do have one question," I said. "Student billing comes due on Monday. Those loans, when they come through, always pay my student fees first, right off the bat, and then it's deposited into my bank account afterwards."

"Right," she said.

"Well, today is Friday. My question is, not to be a bother about it or anything, but exactly how quickly should I expect all of that to be in the system? Should I pay my student fees myself before Monday night -- it'll be refunded to me, of course, but I don't want to incur the $100 late fee -- or should it go through by then without me worrying about it?"

Being a GTA covers tuition; we get a waiver for that, meaning we get a free education as long as we're teaching. I've written about this before. However, student fees are separate from teaching, and they're not covered by the tuition waiver or anything else. Depending on how many hours one takes every semester (as well as what classes they're taking), student fees can be anywhere between $200 and $600 or so. For us grad students, they're generally about $400, out of pocket, before we even get paid our first checks of the semester. In short, they're a pain in the ass -- but if you get financial aid, as I do, they're paid off with that before the rest of the money even sees my bank account, and I don't even see or notice it.

However, since my loans have been seriously delayed, there's nothing there to pay the student fees this semester as of yet. On Tuesday morning at 12AM, if everything isn't processed and disbursed by then, my account balance will become overdue, and I will be charged an extra $100 late payment fee if my balance on it is over $150. My student fees this semester are $250.80. While I have the cash to pay this in full (barely) and still have some money to spare, I'd rather not have to do it myself if I can avoid it. Therefore, I was asking whether I'd actually need to in order to be safe and keep everything with my student accounts on the up-and-up.

I will add that if I do pay them myself, I will get that refunded to me as well once the loan drops. Financial aid supersedes everything else, sort of like how your bank account won't process a debit or check transaction until all pending deposits clear first, to ensure that there's money in the account. If I pay it myself, the system will see that, apply the loan to it instead, and kick that money back to me along with the rest of my refund. So, really, this is a fairly minor concern -- but I asked because I wanted to know, desperately, when I could expect that loan to drop into my student account once that exemption was fully processed, and how long it would take to process it period.

"You should be okay," she said. "All of this stuff rolls over at the end-of-day cycle, so if it's put in the system it will roll over, financial aid will get the automated 'all-clear', and everything should go to your student account."

"Okay," I told her. "That's good; I just wanted to make sure."

I'll still check up on it on Monday, of course; if it hasn't dropped or processed before then (I'll get an automated email telling me if it does, more than likely), then I'll shoot an email to her telling her that I'll just pay the fees to be safe, so don't think I'm being paranoid or anything. In the event that I didn't pay those fees and the loans didn't drop into my student account before the late payment cutoff date, it puts a financial hold on my account that stops anything from coming in until that balance is paid -- that includes loans. Yet another reason I was asking.

Anyway, I thanked her even more profusely than I'd thanked the girl at the financial aid office, and told her that I was incredibly relieved, grateful, and absolutely happy for her help and her working with me, making things a priority, etc. Yes, she may have just been doing her job, but the fact that she walked me through what I needed and told me exactly what I had to do and by when was above and beyond the call of duty for her, and immensely put me at ease. Once everything goes through okay, I'm actually going to send a thank-you card/letter to her office to further show my appreciation. Yeah, that's how grateful I am.

I returned to the department, where I ran into Parker.

"Well?" he asked.

"It's done," I said, shrugging. "Or it's as done as it can be. Got [advisor] to sign off on the plan of study this morning, turned it in just now, and filed my application for degree last night. All of the paperwork has been taken care of, turned in, and is being processed. So, really, it's fixed, or as fixed as it's going to be."

"That's impressive and, actually, really inspiring that [advisor] stepped up to the bat for you like that," he said. "Getting your back and all that, making sure everything was ready and signed off on."

"Yeah," I said. "That was really cool of her. I was very happy and relieved."

And so, I went to my meetings, socialized for a few hours with my friends and colleagues in the department, and with my stress greatly lessened, I went back home, where I told Daisy of the day's events, ate an early dinner, and went to sleep.

That would be the end of the story, except there's a small addendum to it -- on the exemption form, there's a spot where it says "mail to student" once it's processed. I signed that spot so that once it went through, I would know the date/time it did (or didn't). I received that form in the mail here at my house yesterday, showing that my exemption had indeed been approved by the dean of the graduate school, with the requisite "one time only" handwritten next to it (grad students can only get the half-time hours exemption once throughout their entire tenure at the university, so most of them -- like me -- take it in their final semester). It was signed and dated on Friday, which means it was processed almost immediately, put into the system, and then copied and mailed to me. With the exemption processed, all that I've been waiting for should now be in motion, and I should therefore receive the loans in my student account imminently. And, again, there's nothing else I can do but wait for that.

While my stress levels are greatly lessened now, and I can relax a lot more than I could, say, a week ago, the battle is far from over. It's actually just beginning. This semester itself is going to be a battle, starting with when I'll actually get that money -- which will be the first victory in many, many proverbial conflicts. I still have to completely finish my thesis, I have to teach and grade like always, and I have to read and study for my comprehensive exams, which will take place in early April.

This probably means I should sleep now, while I still have the time to do so.