Staff Editorial

For any student receiving a Pennsylvania State Grant, the following notification may be all that you’ve received since learning of your financial aid package months ago: “PA State Grant Notice,” t he notification reads. “Grant funds will be released to the University in Nov. and posted at that time.”

With thousands of dollars hanging out in Student Accounts Office purgatory, listed as pending for weeks on end or worse yet, completely invisible to the account holder, there is enough financial anxiety to incite absolute and total panic.

In a season of life riddled with unpaid internships and seemingly unsurmountable student loans, it is imperative that every student at Duquesne University is able to utilize their financial aid package and any earned scholarships or need-based grants in their fullest extent.

As students operating at the collegiate level, we have more than enough to worry about — papers and projects piling up, Thanksgiving with extended family following a terse and polarized presidential election and the academic Grim Reaper (finals week) looming on the horizon.

With pending student aid quietly promised and loudly unfulfilled, add rent and car payments and groceries to top off an already stressful entrance to adulthood.

Deservingly at the top of our holiday wishlist is a thorough and accessible explanation from Duquesne’s Office of Financial Aid, detailing what the rules and limitations of our student accounts are.

For the hard-working, lower-middle class student who has been awarded more than one scholarship, alongside a need-based grant and landed an exhaustive but rewarding service award alongside a work study role needs to be able to maximize the use of such resources, without accidentally sacrificing any facet of their financial stability.

We are not seeking to change federal law, mind you; if we are unable to obtain several different kinds of funding, so be it, but we should be able to make informed decisions and receive timely communications about the status of our financial future.

More importantly, we should be well-equipped to navigate such discussions. We should be knowledgeable on the processes which bar us from paying our bills on time, from putting our full focus behind our studies and from borrowing unnecessary amounts of money from Sallie Mae, whose temporary cash will only gain more interest while we wait for “pending aid” to go through.

This isn’t to say that we are intentionally negligent. In accordance with federal law, each borrower is required to learn about different kinds of loans at a base level and sign a Master Promissory Note.

Instead, we are wanting to see adequate change in the way that Financial Aid and Student Accounts communicates about the process behind our money: anything at all would be nice.