By LINDSEY SCHIBELHUT, staff reporter.
When it comes to students receiving financial aid Delta College is no exception. According to CollegeBoard.com in the 2012-2013 school year “28 percent of federal student aid was in the form of grants, 60 percent of federal aid was in the form of loans and approximately 8.8 million students received Pell Grants in the 2012-2013 school year.”
Delta’s financial aid website section says, “50 percent of registered students receive Financial Aid, which totals to over $36 million dollars annually.” A great portion of aid is available to students, some of which comes from the federal government, the state of Michigan and scholarships from the Delta College Foundation among others.
Financial aid check disbursement can be an exciting time of the school year. For student Kelly Danielson, 27, this means extra money in her pocket.
“I will be using the money for school supplies and gas,” says Danielson. As for the month long wait for check disbursement Danielson says, “It’s fine with me, as long as we are getting the money for what we need.”
Student Seth Philpot, 25, says for the first couple of years he wasn’t able to receive his financial aid, because he was told his parents made too much money, which he felt was incorrect. This year, however, he was able to pick up his check.
“I will use the financial aid for books, classes and any other school supplies I need,” says Philpot, “I do wish though, instead of cutting everyone checks [the school instead] would hold back these funds, collect the sum total of all the money and distribute the funds to other people who are really in desperate need of the financial aid,” says Philpot.
“When it comes it comes,” says Philpot, “It doesn’t matter to me if it’s the first day or five weeks in,”
However, there have been instances where students will go to classes just long enough to receive their funds, then stop going to class. To ensure students don’t get money they didn’t earn, Delta has policies in place to make sure the student repays the funds.
“The Delta College Financial Aid office follows all Federal regulations and will remove the financial aid the student is no longer entitled to, due to not attending classes,” says David Urbaniak, director of the Financial Aid office.
“Once a student has an outstanding balance for financial aid that was disbursed to them the college will not allow the student to register for future semesters. Also, the student cannot request transcripts until the balance is paid back. Eventually, if the balance is not paid, the student will be sent to collections and will incur additional costs,” says Urbaniak.
Urbaniak advises students who feel they cannot complete their semester courses to go through the process of making a proper withdrawal by receiving the official withdrawal grade of “W.” He suggests students speak with their professor first to see what the best course of action is because there may be other options which could be explored, rather than to stop going to class altogether. Students should also take the time to stop by the Financial Aid office before making the decision to officially withdraw from the course.
“Students should be very careful when selecting classes each semester. Failure to attend and complete classes could impact current and future financial aid eligibility,” says Urbaniak.
For more information regarding the consequences of withdrawing from classes and important information in regards to class attendance and financial aid eligibility, students are encouraged to visit http://www.delta.edu/financial-aid-office/attendancepolicy.aspx or visit the Financial Aid office in D-102.
