The majority of students found themselves waiting in a long line to either speak to a financial aid or a student accounts representative. Many of the students, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors alike wanted to inquire about their loans not being posted on Bannerweb, or their financial aid not showing up on their accounts. This stressed many students out and even led to a lot of upperclassmen not returning to the university.
Instead of taking care of these issues in the regular building for financial aid and student accounts, the staff moved these services to the multi purpose room of the Student Center where students sat in chairs for hours on end with no air conditioning just to be able to receive some assistance. Many people were not happy with this unorganized method of handling business. One freshmen commented on how she waited in line from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, and after all of the commotion, her loan still wasn’t posted until a week later.
"It’s a big inconvienence for the school to drop our classes because they haven’t done their share of the work and accepted our loans. How can they expect us to stay on top of the deadlines when they don’t even follow their own rules and procedures?" said Jessica Scott.
Even Ms.Mitchell in the Student Accounts office was surprised with the rush of students the first few weeks of school. "There were so many kids that needed things to be done...I didnt know what to do with myself" she said.
A lot of people started to think that the confusion with financial aid and student accounts was due to the increase in the Clark Atlanta University student body. The freshmen class this past fall was overwhelming with over 800 more students than expected. Along with these financial aid issues came worries about housing and class registration. All of these things led up to a majority of Clark Atlanta University students starting the year off with a ‘bang’, but not in a good way.
This hold up with the financial aid office caused many students classes to be dropped, which resulted in them having to scurry around campus to get signatures from their professors to allow them back into the class. Senior Malika Thomas said "in all of my years at Clark Atlanta, it has never been this bad." After a few weeks passed, things settled down and students were able to resume going to classes without worrying about loans and financial aid, but they will never forget what they went through in August 2007.
