Screw you, university!

The BBQ Pit
#1

My first rant is directed towards the asshats in the financial aid office, and the second one towards the admissions office and the biomedical engineering department at the university I’ll be attending this fall.

First off, the financial aid office:
Yes, I fully admit that when I applied to your college, I was living in another state. I made no effort to hide this, but I did make sure, in the space to list previous addresses, to make it quite clear I had been living out of state for less than a year and a half, and before that, was born in and lived the first 21 years of my life in this state. And when I moved back here, I also made sure that you knew that. Yet depsite that, you still classified me as an out of state resident, thus forcing me to pay more than TWICE the tuition I would pay as an in-state resident.

Now, call me crazy, but I thought the point of having lower tuition for in-state residents was to entice native teens and young adults to stay in the state for their education, thus helping the economy and such. I consider myself a Vermonter, I would also like to think that if I explained my living situation to any rational adult, they would agree with me, yet your money grubbing suits seem to have decided that the very second I step foot out of state, I suddenly am no longer considered a Vermonter. Bull. Shit. Look, I am trying my best to get as much money I can this summer, and plan to have a part-time job in the fall, to pay for my education. As it stands, I will have to take out more loans, but I would appreciate it if instead of close to $20,000 in loans for one year, I hope I can reduce that to less than $10,000. God forbid you actually try to help a native Vermonter out and do what the reduced in state tuition system was designed to do. As it stands, before I have officially enrolled, you have pissed me off. Which brings me to my next point.

Dear admissions office and biomedical engineering department:
Why the FUCK am I not enrolled yet? I applied in December, got my acceptance letter in March, and before April rolled around, sent back my reply card saying I was going to attend. Since then, I have gotten exactly three more pieces of correspondance from you. A financial aid package letter (see prevoious rant,) a notice that I MUST buy student health insurance (oh, but I can’t do that until after I register for classes…well how the fuck do I do that?) and a letter today telling me that for $100 a year, I can enroll in a program that lets me pay my tuition and fees over the course of the year instead of all at once. I emailed admissions and asked them what the deal was? Where was info on student orientation, registration for classes, and how about (as much as I dread it) my first bill? (Usually that’s a small one with just a deposit that is a bit more formal way of my commitment to attend.) They said that orientation information gets sent out in late July early August (oh goodie, less than a month to switch around my schedule so I can have those days off from wherever I might be working,) and that the bursar’s office handles bills, and they will get sent out later, and the department I applied to is the one who is supposed to send my registration information, class information, and all that jazz. Well yippie, good to know everyone is so freaking speedy on these things, and it’s also good to know that you made so much effort to let me know this. :rolleyes:

#2

I am pretty sure that they don’t just sit around and debate whether students are REAL Vermonters or not. I know that you lived there before and have that as a self-identifying trait but that doesn’t project well on forms. Typically, residency will be established by living in the state X amount of time (often 2 years or less) before enrolling. It sounds like you moved away at the exact wrong time for that purpose. Ask them what the guidelines are though. They should be clear-cut although there could be some remote possibility of an appeal process.

#3

Just today I did send an email asking what their criteria is for determining residency and I asked if there was a way to change or appeal it, and I expect a response back tomorrow (the one good thing I have to say is that they are quick to respond to emails.)

#4

Where are you registered to vote?

#5

I have only ever been registerted to vote in Vermont.

#6

Good luck with legal residency - I fought like a tiger in grad school and never did win. Then it was because my parents had moved to Florida, technically, while I was away in undergrad out of state. The only way I could have gotten them to admit I was a South Carolina resident would have been for my parents to sign these independence forms that their accountant didn’t want them to sign for complicated reasons. So, you know, good luck.

#7

Much of the information you’re looking for (e.g., orientation dates) may be online. Specific activities my not yet be scheduled. The orientations I run in September won’t have finalized schedules until mid-August, but the dates and timeframes to block out are already posted.

As a person who went to school is New Hampshire and Massachusetts, I would have been thrilled with mandadory health insurance, or indeed, the option to get any insurance at all on a school’s group health plan. I spent 6 years with lousy emergency-only coverage–live free or die, I guess.

#8

Okay, well shame on me. I first read your rant, and thought "cripe, it’s hardly as if someone is targeting bouv with this non-resident business, it’s a pretty straightforward concept. So, working in the field and all, I thought I’d russle up some residency policies and then, I dunno, smugly present them to you.

You didn’t mention the specific university, but hey, Vermont isn’t that large of a state, the list isn’t too long and I picked two public Vermont institutions at random. The first one referred to residency rates quite often, but nowhere could I find the actual definition, and the other one started off very promising, but after doggedly following about a million links, I got to a page that was labelled “residency requirement policy” and contained a message that this policy was currently under review and therefore taken offline. Bastards!

So yeah, screw them! Good golly Miss Molly, it’s not a great time of the year to be taking down information about paying tuition, and even in a case where something has to come off for updating, put the freakin’ notice on the top page of where people will go looking for it. I was half-tempted to write a Snide Email that would start something along the lines of “As a fellow higher education professional, I thought I would give you just a leetle heads up about how your web page sucks …” but then I realized I would have to go into how I was looking at it because random strangers on a message board were talking about a school that might very well be the same school, but not necessarily … so probably not the best idea.

The registration thing … on the other hand, late July/early August is a common time frame for registration. So, er, sorry about that.

#9

Well, here’s what I found at for the University of Vermont:

[quote]
In general, to prove that you are an in-state resident for tuition, you must be able to document that:

[ul][li]you (or the parent upon whom you are dependent) have physically resided in Vermont for at least one full year prior to the first day of classes of the semester for which you are applying, [/li][li]that you rely on in-state sources for your financial support, [/li][li]that you are not in Vermont merely for the purpose of attending a college or university, and [/li][li]that Vermont is your permanent home and will remain so indefinitely.[/ul][/li][/quote]

So, if you told them that you have not been living in Vermont for the previous year, you’re probably out of luck. Going by that last bullet, it might not be a good idea, either, to put on your application under “reason for attending University of Vermont” the following answer: “To get the heck out of Vermont!”

#10

Well, looks like I’m fucked for the tuition, then. Apparantly it’s state law, and they cannot make exceptions. The Hell is that shit? Hello more debt. :rolleyes: :mad:

#11

Were you in school for the year you were out of state?

#12

It’s a fairly common thing, and some institutions use a different criteria than residency (for example, IIRC, Brigham Young University differentiates tuition fees on LDS/Non-LDS instead of In-State/Out-of-State).

#13

I’m a Vermonter too, coincidentally.

The student aid programs at the college I attended were terrible. I was constantly being harrassed by the business office and financial aid no matter how many times I explained my situation to them, and how many times I documented and sent in paperwork. I sent the same forms no less than four times, because they repeatedly claimed they never received them.

I heartily endorse the 'screw you’ing. :smiley: