Student loan payments seeing delays

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author: kristian ferguson and jael bartnik | news editor & multimedia editor


money, money, money Jeremy Davis

Enrollment office causes late payments

The Carillon became aware last week that many students were reporting that their student loans were delayed. University of Regina student Holly Worby was facing some severe problems caused, in part, by the delays. 

“Right now, I’ve got a tooth I need filled because some of the filling has fallen out. I was depending on student loans to subsidize the rest of the cost that insurance is not going to cover. Now that those aren’t in, I have a tooth with exposed nerve endings. I can’t eat comfortably, and I can’t get it fixed until student loans are in.” 

Rachel Walliser was another student who brought up how the delays had been for her mental health. 

“It makes me anxious. I never actually had student loans until this year. I had saved up enough money in my year off, so it brought a lot of unnecessary anxiousness and worry because I was worried that I didn’t do it right or it was something that I had done wrong.” 

Worby expressed a similar sentiment. 

“General mental health and stress levels spiked because I don’t have the money, I don’t know where it is, I don’t know why I don’t have it, and there has been zero communication from the university as to why it was delayed in the first place. I had to go out of my way to figure it out for myself.” 

Additionally, Worby and Walliser both talked about how they were never alerted about the delay and had to take matters into their own hands to figure things out. 

“I don’t exactly know what the problem was. I’m still unclear. A few people told me that the system was shut down, but I had to find out on my own,” said Walliser. “They didn’t say what the problem was [at Enrollment Services], they just said that they were having issues and [the loans] should be in within ten days.” 

“I only showed up once in person, called a few times, and basically got told that they will be there when they get there. I showed up in person and got the same attitude,” said Worby. “It wasn’t concise info and it didn’t really tell me anything.” 

Naomi Deren, Director of Enrolment Services, tried to shed some light on the situation. 

“For the last two years, we were able to have loans up to that date confirmed by the first day of classes. Compared to those two years, yes, definitely a larger amount [of late deposits],” said Deren. “I’m happy to tell you that we are caught up now. Students should be receiving their loans within five to ten business days.” 

She aimed to explain what happened and why there was such a stark difference from years previous. 

“The main reason is that we lost our main person who confirmed the loans at the exact wrong time. She found another job; we’re very happy for her, but it made things behind. We’ve been doing everything we can to get the loans confirmed. All hands on deck, staying late, overtime, whatever we can.”  

Deren also tried to explain how the process works for them to confirm student loans. 

“It’s a very manual process. The government sends us every loan and we have to confirm that every student who has applied is registered in the right amount of courses, right course faculty, name spelled right, all of these things that make it take a long time. We never guarantee to students that we would confirm their loans by the first day of classes.” 

If you are someone who is affected and need help, Deren stresses that students come to enrollment for help. 

“We’re doing the best that we can to make sure we bend over backwards for students. We have emergency student loans, so if students don’t have their money and rent is due, or they need groceries, or whatever it is, we have a way to provide them with something to tide them over until their student loan is released.” 

Their office can be found on the first floor of the Administration and Humanities building or you can contact them by phone at 306-585-4591 or by email at enrolment.services@uregina.ca.

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