Financial Aid Season Closed!

The past couple months are what I call the financial aid season. Ok, so it's not technically closed, but pretty much. It definitely has the resemblance of hunting season. It was my first season as a financial aid counselor so it was a little bit of an intense couple months. Hense the disappearance acts on this blog. I work in the countryside of Illinois so financial aid is really a big deal. The knowledge about financial aid is mediocre, there are all sorts of campaigns and events in and around Chicago, but lets say there is a severe lack of outreach in the countryside. I've really been trying to push the outreach and event in the area. I've really been pushing talking to classrooms of students, but schools are under a lot of stress..... layoffs, changing expectations, I can understand if they're unsure about letting a young state employee into the school consistently. Even if I mean well. So I was trying to create as many events as I could through February and at the latest March. Seeing how I live in Illinois, which has a wonderful grant program called the MAP grant... I push financial aid a lot. Not all states have a state program like that, whether that program is going to stick around for a while is unknown. I went to school thanks to federal grants, and now I work with a lot of students who qualify for these grants as well.
The big news is that financial aid applications were up 30%. That's a lot. As a result of that I got a notice that the IL Map grant was going to be cut on Monday. So thems the breaks! Last year the money ran out mid may....this year mid april. That's rough. I sent this notice around to the schools and naturally have been getting last minute phone calls about helping students fill out their FAFSA. This is extraordinarily frustrating to me..not helping the students...but that so many students have not got this done. It's almost May. The form is really not that hard unless something goes wrong. What is going on that so many students are doing this at the lats minute? Is awareness low? Is motivation low? Do families just forget? Who's job is it to make sure students have this form done...the student, the family, the counselor, the college? I take the issue on myself, next season I'm going to have to hit it hard and fast. I want my district done by the end of March. I don't want my students to be refused funding for college because of some stupid error on someone's part. I will go to every senior classroom as every school if I have to and make a list of students to meet with that haven't finished it.

IDK! Filling out the FAFSA is the easy part....it's graduation and paying off loans that's the tough one. Especially when loans can come from all over the place and they don't send you a notification that a specific loan is due until AFTER it's due. I have a perkins loan where this happened this month. you would think that a loan made for low income students would have better reminders and information with it. My college switched half way through my college career from private bank loans to loans directly from the federal government, to add to my frustrations trying to figure all this repayment crap out. I THINK I now have it all covered, no more nasty surprises.

Lesson of the story... my life has finally calmed down and I can focus on me again...sorta. As much as I do normally...which isn't much. lol