EVERETT — Taking out a short-term, high-interest payday loan was a last resort. It also was the only way Vincent Bryant could stay in college.
Bryant, 38, a business student at Everett Community College, said he had to take out the loans, twice, in recent months.
He is among thousands of students across the state scrambling to make ends meet because the financial aid they were counting on has been delayed this fall.
“I’m struggling,” Bryant said. “My aid should have been approved a long time ago.”
Community colleges are slammed with record enrollments this fall, partly beccause the faltering economy has pushed idle workers back to school for retraining. At the same time, some colleges have had to cut back on staffing to balance budgets.
“The stress lines are really beginning to show in all areas, especially in financial aid where colleges have reported increases of up to 65 percent in financial aid applications,” said Janelle Runyon, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Community and Technical Colleges.
“I have never seen anything that comes close to this,” said Steve Epperson, financial aid director for Skagit Valley College where he has worked for the past 33 years.
The number of students completing a Free Application for Federal Student Aid form has more than doubled at some colleges. Statewide, applications are up by 24 percent over this time last year, and some financial aid programs have run out of money.
The sheer volume of applications is not the only factor bogging things down. The state has a new computer software system for processing financial aid applications that, for now, is much more time-consuming to use than the old one, several officials said.
Other factors causing delays include employment and social agencies referring more clients to colleges, students whose applications have been delayed calling more frequently for updates and more questions from potential students who have yet to apply.
After hearing horror stories from fellow students, Bryant decided to take his plea to the college’s EvCC Board of Trustees to find a way to speed up the process.
“I wasn’t just there for me,” he said. “I felt I had to speak for everyone else.”
EvCC has received 7,400 financial aid applications with about 1,000 remaining to be processed. At this time last year, it had 4,600 applications. It received 6,800 for the entire year and is projecting 9,500 applications this year.
“This is unprecedented,” said Laurie Franklin, EvCC’s dean for financial aid, whose staff has worked more than 600 hours of overtime and comp time to process applications.
“Every day I hear the stories of students who can’t pay for their child care or they can’t buy food,” Franklin said. “It’s devastating for the students living it, and it’s very trying on the staff to hear that. We want desperately to get it done.”
Last week, EvCC leaders decided to give the financial aid department some leeway to try to catch up. Beginning this week, the office will be open from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Mondays and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays. To clear the unprocessed applications, from Wednesday through Friday, the office won’t answer phone calls or e-mails or respond to walk-in visitors. EvCC hopes to resume regular hours in that office in December.
“We hope the dedicated time at the end of the week will help significantly reduce the backlog of applications,” Franklin said.
Franklin said Tacoma Community College employed a similar strategy, which resulted in cutting the response time from 16 weeks to five weeks.
Nancy Truitt Pierce, an EvCC trustee, said she didn’t realize the backlog was so large and described the factors causing it as “a perfect storm.”
“This is what gets in the way of people being able to get along with their lives,” she said.
Ryan Lindley, 26, is an EvCC student who’s also still waiting for his financial aid to go through. Until it does, he said, he is living in a 1989 van with a transmission on its last legs.
Lindley, who plans to study engineering, said he was told two months ago that he would have his financial aid by now.
“I’m basically living off of nothing until whenever my financial aid comes through,” he said. “It’s kind of a difficult situation.”
John Meyer has heard similar stories from EvCC students. He’s a counselor who helps low-income students going into high demand fields secure Opportunity Grants for tuition and books. Most need more financial aid, however.
“Students might have had part-time jobs in the past, but those have dried up,” he said. “Students are much more reliant on financial aid now than ever.”
Edmonds Community College had received 5,879 financial aid applications through Sept. 23, a 49 percent increase from the previous year.
With overtime, EdCC financial aid staff has completed 30 percent more files than the same time a year ago, but a 60-day processing backlog remains.
“Financial aid processing is a statewide issue, as is the fact that our colleges continue to serve more students who are in greater need with fewer resources to do so,” said Michelle Graves, an Edmonds Community College spokeswoman.
Meyer, the EvCC counselor, said he watched financial aid workers spend long hours poring over applications last summer.
Last week, he was trying to track down a promising student who appeared to have dropped out because his financial aid hadn’t come through.
“The students, their families and our society, everyone benefits when a person who believes a college education is beyond their reach courageously tries to achieve that goal,” he said. “It is a shame when access is limited.”
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