DCCCD students frustrations continue in regards to financial aid

Thousands of Dallas County Community College students have faced delays and frustration trying to get financial aid this semester.

Some have resorted to contacting The Dallas Morning News'  Problem Solver for help and others created a Facebook page called "Reform for DCCCD" in hopes of getting help. The problem began in the summer, even before school started.

Richard Renshaw, executive district director of financial aid and scholarship programs, said over 55,000 students applied for student aid to the district. That number covers all seven DCCCD colleges:  Brookhaven, Cedar Valley, Eastfield, El Centro, Mountain View, North Lake and Richland.

"There were 33,000 to 34,000 who were eligible that actually registered," Renshaw said. "There were some others that registered but they were on suspension – about 3,600. You cannot get financial aid if you're on suspension."

Renshaw said as of the first day of school, Aug. 29, the district had awarded about 22,000 Pell Grants, out of the 33,000 applications, and they have had more student applications since then.  Some of the applicants have not completed the process yet, so the district has not yet determined their eligibility.

"We're still working those students that applied prior to the start of the semester," Renshaw said. "We're trying to get a resolution for the 11,000, and we will continue that work until we have that finished, hopefully in the next few days."

The district will continue to work new applications throughout the semester, Renshaw said, but the biggest problem in trying to process applications has been the overwhelming number who have applied.

"We're  running about 25 percent ahead of last year," he said. "At this point of the year compared to last year, that is, it's the sheer volume."

Renshaw said the system was  overwhelmed and the district didn't have all the pieces in place before the start of the semester so they were not able to make the transition into the new structure.

Compared to last September, when 14,000 students applied for financial aid, this year the district saw 22,000, Renshaw said.  When the district finishes with the transition at the service center, they expect to have increased staff.

"We are centralizing the process," Renshaw said. "We did establish a call center that had a lot of technical issues. I think that we'll resolve a significant number. Students couldn't get answers to their questions. We're still working on that problem."

The call center is located at the district office at 1601 South Lamar near downtown Dallas.

Renshaw said they started with 20 call center agents, but have had problems getting a full staff. With the technical issues, they haven't reached full capacity yet.

"Over the next several weeks, we will determine what we need to do," Renshaw said. "It may be that we keep the full-time staff at that level and beef it up with part-time workers. We're going to figure it out."

Renshaw said at the beginning of the semester the call center was recieving 4,000 calls a day from students, but the calls were getting dropped  so students were re-calling at all seven colleges.

"The first month we were in operation, before registration, we were running around 700 calls a day," Renshaw said. "We've got to analyze the metrics of calls so that we know what volume of calls we'll receive each month of the year."

Renshaw said that during peak season of summer and the start of the semester, the district may have to add part-time staff. Also, to help with processing, they have outsourced verification duties to Global Financial Aid Services Inc. of Gulfport, Miss., a company that specializes in doing processing for schools.  

"They do all different kinds of processing, from awarding loan processing to more complete services," Renshaw said. "We only asked them to verify processing for us."

Renshaw says that to students who are still having problems and waiting for financial aid can go to econnect and log in. Go to My Financial Aid and they will be able to see the status of their account. Or they can  email the district at:  faca@dcccd.edu. The call center phone number is 972-587-2599 and is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays. Students should give their name and student ID number.

"We have people working and responding to these emails as soon as possible," Renshaw said. "There are some delays. The wait time is dropping down."

Students may apply anytime before Nov. 1 for financial aid for the spring semester.