As we settle into the new academic year, there has been frustration arising from students about their FAFSA returns. Many took to forums like Yik Yak to describe and discuss their issues—specifically with the offices of Murray State.

Three students have come forward and discussed their issues to The Murray State News, saying they’ve been hung up on and left with less aid than they should have.

Maddie Williams, creative writing major, saw she had almost no aid.

“I get refunds for Murray State … I went and looked in my financial aid and almost none of my financial aid was there,” Williams said. “My Pell Grant was not there, my Federal Work Study was not there, and my Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarhip money had been reduced to half and then cut off for the spring. I was going to have to pay Murray State.”

Williams tried to contact the office several times about her Pell Grant and never got a reply for a week and a half. She called one more time and got a connection, but not with the financial aid office, it was the Bursar’s.

“Which is close enough (because), in my eyes, I need to talk to somebody, anybody,” Williams said. “(The office said), ‘Oh, well, that was, yeah, you know, you’re not gonna get a Pell Grant.’ And I was like, that makes no sense. I’ve gotten one every year. I went and I checked, I’m nowhere near the lifetime capacity for it. And they said, This was based off of your parents 2023 tax information. They make too much. The family contribution is too high.”

Williams said her parents filed for bankruptcy.

“My family contribution is zero,” she said. “I don’t get any contribution from it. They’re unable to provide me assistance for paying for college. And they’re like, ‘Yeah, unfortunate. That’s just how the federal government sees it.’ So, you’re saying that my parents make too much money, even though none of that is going towards me?”

The office had Williams fill out a special circumstances form. Still, Williams was without answers to why this was happening.

“Hey, can you also answer my question about my KEES and why it’s been reduced?” Williams asked. “(The office) said, ‘No, I can’t, but I will take your name and number down and I’ll give it to somebody who will reach out to you tomorrow.’”

Williams did not hear from the office for several days. When they contacted her, it was to inform that her KEES were going to be totally cut off. Then, she received an email to her initial Pell Grant inquiry in the beginning, asking for her M number.

She asked them if there was any chance of an update on her special circumstance form. The office replied saying “No, because it’s a first-come, first-serve basis.”

“We are on the eighth business day of my special circumstance form being looked at and reviewed,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of hope,”

Sidda Roche, senior anthropology major who uses they/them pronouns and a regular recipient of the Cap Grant, noticed they were not receiving it this year after being notified via email July 23, the bill payment deadline.

“I learned literally through having to compare my financial aid between last year and this year after they told me I owed over $1,400 with two weeks to either pay it or start a payment plan,” Roche said. “I’d never had issues before this, so I looked at everything and saw that my Cap Grant, which I had also gotten last year, was missing, even though The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority had already awarded it on the website. I immediately emailed them back asking about it, and they didn’t respond.”

Roche went to the Registrar’s Office in person afterward to resolve this, the office said they’d fix the problem. Then, the office emailed Roche informing them the office has their address set in Arkansas, where they’re from, and not Kentucky, which is where their official address is listed on the FAFSA.

Roche said, except for their first year, they do not have an Arkansas address; Murray is their permanent address. They said in hindsight this makes sense that they need to change their address to Murray, but this has never been an issue before. Contacting the office became harder each time as they attempted to understand.

“I called the registrar’s office only to be told to send an email instead,” Roche said. “After going back and forth a few times, they sent me back to Student Financial Services, where I was told that they were just going to take the Cap Grant off of last year’s financial aid and replace it with a Murray State grant so it would even out, and that I was ineligible for the KHEAA Cap Grant going forward. I repeatedly asked how I was able to get it last year but not this year, and instead of ever actually answering me, aka admitting that someone made a mistake, they just replaced the money.”

Since they live off-campus as compared to recent years, Roche is frustrated with how this has played out, as living expenses make up most of their cost and they expected to be paying less this year.

Yet Roche has had to take out the biggest loan of their college career.

“I had been sitting around waiting on that grant to get put on my financial aid account, since I had already accepted it from KHEAA. It’s just very baffling to me that there is no system set up to make this make more sense. It doesn’t get flagged anywhere. The FAFSA asks about your residency, I put where I lived, voted and worked, and FAFSA accepted it with no problem, and then KHEAA gave me a grant with no problem. Murray State was the only thing that flagged this as incorrect, and they didn’t let me know about it until I asked them.”

Samantha Rodgers, a senior social work major, filled out her FAFSA on July 28 and was worried about how her form would process. To get an idea of what to expect, she called the Office of Financial Aid—only to be put on hold for 20 minutes before being hung up on.

“I called them a couple more times and got hung up on immediately, all without ever even getting to speak to someone,” Rodgers said. “I tried calling the bursar’s office to the same effect, 15-minute hold, then getting hung up on immediately the two times I called after that. I tried calling each a few more times with the same results before deciding to wait a bit and then try again later.”

When she did, someone finally answered and helped her with when to expect her form to process and make a payment plan until then. Rodgers called it a perfectly pleasant experience.

Rodgers’s form processed, and she learned she was awarded $7,500 on August 8. Only to get an email two days later, saying the amount was being shortened to $3,000, less than half of what was offered and less than what she normally gets per semester.

Rodgers tried contacting the office again and was met with continued frustration.

“I had to call financial aid again,” she said. “Just a 15-minute wait and no getting hung up on this time, thank god, and be given a form to fill out to ask to prorate my loan amount for the spring semester. Which, of course, would go otherwise unused because I’m graduating in the fall. Honestly, the lady on the phone did her best and was far more help than I could have found otherwise, but she didn’t sound confident about why this had happened and the form I filled out didn’t seem like it was for that purpose. I’m not convinced it’s going to go through at all, it may not get approved even if it does, and if it doesn’t, I’m on the hook for $1,400 out of pocket I hadn’t planned on.”

As Rodgers learned she wasn’t alone during this, she found the situation to be deplorable.

“I think it’s unprofessional, frustrating and unnecessarily stressful the way it’s happened to me, but for others, it could be the cause of them not being able to finish college at all,” she said. “On top of that, I’ve heard of far worse issues people have been having with financial aid for the past month and a half at least, issues far less manageable than mine. Altogether it’s unacceptably unprofessional at best, and that’s the best thing I can say if these issues aren’t resolved.”