Students experience long waits at Office of Financial Aid

Julia Fechter

Hundreds of Georgia Southern students waited in line at the university’s Office of Financial Aid on Tuesday, Sept. 5.

Many students wanted to resolve their tuition issues before Wednesday’s tuition payment deadline.

“This is my worst year waiting in four years of being here (at GS). I’ve been waiting at the financial aid office since 11:15 this morning,” JP Conway, senior business logistics major, said at around 4 p.m..

Conway was able to take a lunch break and run some other errands before returning to the office.

“They were on ticket # 785 when I left…my ticket was 778. They pull tickets. You pull up to 999, and then it rolls back over to one,” he added.

The Office of Financial Aid was not available for an interview Monday afternoon because of the increased student traffic, but they did provide an email contact for The George-Anne.

Chrystal Mcleod, a freshman English major, said that Financial Aid told her students who got tickets before 5 p.m. would be seen today, and that the office would meet with all those students before closing its doors.

Many students were also frustrated by the long waiting times and some students didn’t even have the chance to meet with the financial aid advisers.

Ethan McKibbin, a senior business management major, said that the Financial Aid office does not have enough people to staff it.

Though the experience may have been frustrating, Conway understood the limits of the office’s capabilities to serve students.

Conway said, “I mean, they were encouraging and all that, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re waiting for four or five hours trying to console people like that.”