Texan Mosaic

by RILEY GOLDEN//Entertainment Editor

It seems that every year I have a different roadblock to face if I want to get registered for college.

But this year was different, because I had to deal with one roadblock after the next. It’s a wonder how I even got registered this semester.

But what I do know is that I was tested by the process of trying to get registered.

Last semester, with relief, I turned in my FAFSA application a couple weeks into the semester. But the relief didn’t last long. About two weeks later, I was hit with a “random” verification process for which I submitted everything in a timely fashion. But I had to wait two weeks to receive anything back. And during this time, I’m wondering if I’m going to have to set up a payment plan so I can stay in school.

I did end up having to set up a payment plan, and because someone who works at SPC told my mother, “It doesn’t matter when the verification paperwork is sent in, you have the whole year.” But this person also failed to tell my mother that if we didn’t do it as soon as possible, I was going to have to do a payment plan for the next semester as well. All the while, my father was making payments on my classes.

Fast forward to winter break, and I’m still nagging my mom about getting her tax paperwork done and submitting it to the college’s strenuous verification process, which takes about two weeks to hear anything back on.

Then on the first day of this semester, Financial Aid has everything from me, and I’m prepared to set up the same payment plan that I had set up for at least three other semesters: making a $400 or so payment at the beginning of the semester and riding that out until I got my Financial Aid. But that payment plan no longer exists, and no one in the Business Office seems to have any recognition of this ever being the case.

So, on Jan. 19, the night before a payment plan has to be set up, I log onto My SPC to see that right in front of me, it says that online registration is open through Jan. 20. But when I go to add a class, the option is not available, and here’s why: the college says that you have until Jan. 20 to set up a payment plan or you’ll be dropped. Except the reason I couldn’t enroll was because the system was shut down on Jan. 19, because SPC was already dropping students.

So, on the morning of Jan. 20, I call the Business Office and ask why I still can’t register for classes. I am told that I have to come to campus to register. So I do, and then I tell the counselor who assisted me that on the myspc.edu homepage, it says online registration is open through Jan. 20, so I was wondering why I was blocked from registering and told I had to come to campus. I was told I could’ve registered myself… So someone is misinformed and I, as well as other students, constantly have problems with hearing different information from different offices on campus.

So not only are students misinformed about how long they actually have to register before they are dropped, they are also misinformed about when they can get online to register for classes. To me, online registration open through Jan. 20 means exactly that.

So here I am, a young adult, trying to further my education at a community college with the help of financial aid, and I’m now faced with a $900 payment to become enrolled in SPC.

So yes, I just had to pay half of my tuition to enroll at SPC when Financial Aid was supposed to be paying for it in the first place, and different universities provide $25 emergency payment plans.

Not only does SPC not offer an emergency payment plan, they also removed their cheapest payment plan option of four equal payments and forced me, and I’m sure many other students, to shell out half of their tuition fees if they wanted to attend college this semester.

There are many discrepancies between the different offices on campus, and something needs to be done to fix it.