HutchCC Students Have Processes in Place when Financial Aid Problems Hit

By Bianca Salazar
Staff writer
IG: bancasalazar_bts

As students are going to class and living their lives, some Hutchinson Community College dorm students received an unexpected letter in the mail within the last month.

The letter comes from the Director of Residence Life, Shelby Branting. It explains that the students that have an outstanding balance on their account need a resolution, whether that is paying it off out of pocket, using their financial aid money or setting up a payment plan. If the student was unable to complete this by Thursday, they would be evicted from the residence halls and will be unable to graduate, transfer credits, or register for classes in future terms at HutchCC.

Vice President of Student Services, Christopher Lau, reviewed the situation and explained how the financial aid process works for students.

“The Director of Residence Life and Student Activities runs a query each fall and spring semester that provides her with information on students with over a $1,000 balance,” Lau said. “This list is sorted and shared with the student’s academic advisor, a Financial Aid Advisor, and the student’s coach if they are part of an athletic team. A Financial Aid Advisor goes through the list of students and provides updates on the student’s current financial aid status. This status can change as students add/drop classes, accept/decline student loans, are awarded additional scholarships, etc. The information provided by Financial Aid might indicate that a student needs to accept a loan, sign certain documents, upload certain verification documents, etc. The idea behind sending this list to academic advisors, coaches, etc., is to get staff who are familiar with students to help them with their outstanding bill.”

Lau said that the Director of the Residence Life and Student Activities sent the letter for awareness for the students and to help ensure success and stability while living on campus. Lau said that it is important that current housing payments are made to continue use of all amenities while at HutchCC. If a student has an account balance of any amount, they will not be able to receive a diploma if they are graduating, courses from the current payment period will include the grade designation of “in progress” on their transcript, and they cannot register for future term enrollment.  

“We find by sending the letter that some of our students do not realize that they even have a bill, and the plan is to not evict anyone,” Lau said. “Our Director of Residence Life and Student Activities encourages all students who receive the letter to come talk to her so that a plan can be made.”

There are many reasons why some financial aid and scholarships don’t go to a student’s bill. When the financial advisor meets the student to review their financial aid, the advisor will make sure the student wasn’t selected for verification. The Department of Education selects these students to give the college more information about them. HutchCC doesn’t select students for this.

Then, the advisor will check to make sure the student has logged into the financial aid portal on DragonZone and accepted the awards.

The advisor will then check that the student has completed entrance counseling and signed a Master Promissory Note at www.studentaid.gov. Entrance counseling is federally required for all first-time borrowers, and the Master Promissory Note is the document students sign saying they promise to repay their loans to the federal government. 

HutchCC scholarships are also reviewed to see if they are completed. The things that will be reviewed are checking if the student is enrolled in enough credit hours as by the scholarship agreement, seeing if the student has met the scholarship requirements like specific course enrollment, GPA, etc., and making sure the student has signed the scholarship award letter. If students continue to see problems with their scholarship money, they are encouraged to contact the financial aid or business office.

Then, the advisor would review the student’s course schedule to see if they have had 6 hours certified for the loans to move to their accounts.  Course certification is instructors marking in the system that the student has attended their class. The school must make sure that the students are in classes that count towards the degree they are pursuing.  If a student is enrolled in classes that do not count in their degree audit towards their degree, they are not allowed to pay students for those courses.

Another reason why aid might not move to a student’s account would be if the student in on Satisfactory Academic Progress Denial.

Lau said, “We are required to monitor students’ progress in courses. For students to maintain progress they must have a 67% completion rate, 2.0 GPA, and cannot exceed more than 150% of credit hours which for most, though not all, students cannot exceed 90 credit hours.”

For those students who still have questions or concerns, Lau gives his advice.

“We want to do what we can to help students finance their education and have a successful time at HutchCC. If students have questions or concerns about their financial aid, our office is open 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday through Friday for students to walk in and meet with us to discuss questions or concerns they have about their aid. Students can also email us at finaid@hutchcc.edu or call the office at 620-665-3568.”

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