Florida A&M University students must have their attendance holds cleared by instructors before financial aid can be dispersed.
Marcia Boyd, director of financial aid, said students that have submitted applications for financial aid on or after Aug. 24, are considered late applicants and their aid is still processing.
“The process for applying for financial aid for the 2009-2010 school year began in January,” Boyd said.
“This is a big issue. Students will come the week of school, instead of applying for it early… it’s a federal law that the faculty make sure students are enrolled.”
Some students enrolled in class did not attend class during the first week of school.
“Generally, this is not a rapid problem,” Boyd said. “All students must attend all registered classes in order for the attendance hold to be lifted.”
Carlina Frainguel, 20, third-year business administration student from Miami, said she was placed on attendance hold and she has not received all of her financial aid.
“I checked with all my teachers to see if they put in the attendance and found out that one of them had not because he had a problem logging into his FAMU account,” said Frainguel.
She added the reason why she has not received the rest of her aid is because she was on attendance hold and thought it had been lifted.
“It was still showing up on my account,” Frainguel said. “I had to go back to the office two or three times just for them to remove it.”
Students are automatically placed on attendance hold until each of their instructors mark them as attending.
Cedric Prince, 21, a third-year elementary education student from Tampa, said he was placed on an attendance hold and the hold was lifted.
Prince received part of his financial aid, but is waiting to get the rest.
“This has everything to do with financial aid sending this paper work or whatever they have to do to the lender, so that they can send it to the school and I can get my money,” Prince said.