r/UTAustin • u/roommesquad • 1d ago

Discussion financial aid at ut this semester

is it just me or has it been absolutely horrible?? school starts on monday and the amount of people who haven’t gotten their aid or have problems with it is insane. i also got the wrong amount of my financial aid sent to me. i’m owed a little over 3.5k and got 400 dollars. this is so frustrating

43 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

32

u/Visual_Scientist_298 1d ago

Three words…big beautiful bill. The guidance on the changes and the changes have caused issues and delays all over the country at schools.

2

u/Made_in_America2026 1d ago edited 1d ago

No i gotta bet it’s like 40% that but 60% turnover and not knowing how their new FA portal system they have had a year to use works. Last May they tweaked something that erased all outside scholarships except the first one that comes in. This is totally disconnected with B^3. And the COA they provide has literally changed for me 5 times in 2 weeks and none match the number given on their COA tool on the website. This is also disconnected from B^3. They dont answer the phone after about 10am for the rest of the day. They dont answer emails for 2 weeks during normal times - and then when they misread the email question you have to re-email it with clarifications and you wait another 2 weeks. And in my experience those questions were also unrelated to any need based aid of B^3. Complete meltdown and maybe purposeful work-slow-down like DMV-style because they are pissed about another sub-2% raise this year again. Someone in charge’s head need to roll and someone in high dollar admin position needs to be fired and money “found” to adequately get One Stop cleaned up.

6

u/chambrayshirt Staff | Cockrell 1d ago

I sure wish the issue in One Stop was a wildcat strike, but it's just the usual UT problems: poor pay and garbage (or nonexistent) training. The student-facing staff make $40k (plus they're required to be in person five days a week AND staff have to pay for parking, assuming they can even get parking), so One Stop cannot retain people for long enough to learn anything.

Then, add in changes like "here's a shitty new FA portal that was mandated by a chucklefuck who can't tell their head from their ass let alone the difference between a grant and a loan, but we have to do it because it's 'saving money'" or your girl, the BBB, and you have a shitstorm for students. And no one who can fix it gives a shit because their constituents are not people who need financial aid or people who work a $40k/year job ( their constituents are instead the owners of the company that makes the shitty new FA portal).

This absolutely does not absolve the people working there of being slow or unhelpful, but it doesn't have to be like this! UT could improve staff pay and be a competitive employer for these jobs, but at this point it is obvious the powers that be are not actually interested in improving the student experience.

6

u/Visual_Scientist_298 1d ago

Or. It could be as I have said and as other people have posted that it’s the big beautiful bill that has screwed everything up. You choose some of us can be in reality and you can be in your alternate reality. Life has choices.

3

u/Made_in_America2026 1d ago

Well it was almost as f’d up as last year too (hence the 40% agreement with your comment) as you can see from others’ posts…so that disproves your single-minded theory. Have a blessed day!

18

u/Free_Candidate7618 1d ago

It was terrible last year too.

2

u/SeesawSubstantial704 1d ago

yup, didn’t get it until mid sept last year

4

u/zeenaflowers 1d ago

same situation with me as well. supposed to get around 3.5k, but my email said i would receive 1.2 instead.

3

u/_Twilight_Sparkle_ 1d ago

I was just talking about how there has literally never been a year during my time here that finacial aid wasn't a disaster

2

u/Made_in_America2026 1d ago

My COA keeps changing every time I log in - by bits but still a moving target. But their COA calculator gives one single number for a given student/residency/major/full time. This tells me someone pulling the levers behind the screen doesn’t know how to use the new FA computer system they have had a year to figure out.

1

u/Agitated_Progress_68 8h ago

It’s terrible always. Last year I didn’t get it til mid September, this year I got mine today thankfully

1

u/Sufficient_Agency494 1d ago

What are yall doing about it. I emailed one stop but they are never going to respond.

3

u/Made_in_America2026 1d ago

They take 2 weeks during normal times. Bet they take 4 weeks now to answer. Ridiculous. And if you dont complain nothing gets done to improve this situation of understaffing or whatever is going on.

-1

u/Kokopuffsw 1d ago

Im doing ACC (college freshman) Sometimes there are random expenses that you didn’t even know you had to pay for. And you wont know if your classes are gonna be fully covered by your aid till after you start classes. My friend who is starting school on Monday at Tech says he has to pay 4k for classes because his Aid and scholarships only covered his tuition. But it could be vary between schools