Financial Aid Office Personal Review by Andrew Lucero

           The great goal of every college student out there is to receive the valued “College Degree”. You may ask yourself “Why is this little piece of paper so valuable?” Well, everyone has a job in mind that they would love to pursue throughout their life. This job looks for people with experience in the field. That is where this little paper comes in play. This paper says you have four or more grueling years invested in the job. So many higher paying jobs require you to have a degree, because they want the best for their business.

            In order to get a high class degree it takes a great amount of money. Paying for college is a big factor that stops students from even furthering their education after high school. We are so lucky to be in a world, where there are so many organizations trying to provide large amounts of funding to students throughout the country. Then, there are resources that universities provide, that try to guide you to find these funds provided by organizations.

            I am a current student at The University of New Mexico and I had this same exact problem. This led me to find the resource my college provides known as “The Financial Aid Office”, located on main campus.

The Financial Aid Office is a place that UNM offers to assist students when it comes to paying for their education. The location of this resource is the first floor of Mesa Vista Hall. A place to give you multiple options to succeed at affording your college education. Although many advisors send you with question to ask the Financial Aid Office, the place does not give off welcoming vibes, leaving you with unassured answers.

            The first impressions are always a key component when it comes to feeling comfortable in a place, even in a resource like this one. The UNM Financial Aid Office has their specific methods to try and accomplish this. They put a door greeter to welcome any student that walks through the door. The greeter is also there to direct the student to the correct station based on their specific situation. That part makes the students feel very welcomed and comfortable at the resource. They have people sitting in desks to the left of the entrance. I’m guessing they are more for scheduled appointments. Straight ahead of the entrance are a group computers that students are using. I never asked the purpose for them being on the computers, so I have no clue what that section was for. The place that the greeter sent most of the students, was a line that leads to more employees at desks off to the right. These employees are there to help students with any general information that come to mind. These are not for schedule appointments but for walk-ins. These are the general things that I have knowledge about, when it comes to the resource from the few times I have visited.

            There are a very small amount of strengths in my opinion that the Financial Aid Office has for their specific purpose. The insanely nice greeter gave me a great sense of being comfortable. A sense that you’re are going to receive the greatest advisement ever. Another thing is that I have received a few emails from them, which showed they had some bit of care when it came to reaching out to students.

            With the small amount of pros, came an even larger amount of cons. After you received an excellent greeting, the comfortable feeling quickly faded as you approached the desk. The ladies asks you the reason for your visit in a very awkward manner. As I was curious about the resource, I did a great amount of research online to see what I could learn. Every answer they gave me was straight from the material they had online. I was hoping by making an actual visit to the resource, I would receive some sort of edge on finding a great way to pay for college. I was hoping for advice on sites that offer many scholarships to students already attending college. Instead I received scholarship information on basic UNM scholarships that I knew about coming into college. I asked about Federal Loans hoping for an example of how they work and how they help. Being informed on the interest rates that come along with Federal Loans would have been helpful to know as well. Instead of any of these options they gave me a site to go look at and become familiar with on my own time. I was fishing for questions instead of being filled with every nook and cranny of funding available. After a while I was just wanting to leave the resource as soon as possible. The meeting didn’t last very long due to the very poor help I received.

            I would recommend visiting the resource at least once in hope that you get some type of better experience. Otherwise I thought the help was poor and a place I would try to avoid getting financial help from. I have not tried visiting any other places that I heard will also help with these kind of problems. You could try to visit the CEP program. They may have some insight on financial help. I think CAPS has some type of help for Scholarships or at least tips on writing essays for scholarships. You can go to your specific advisor in hope they can offer you an idea for financial help. Ask fellow students who have been attending here on how they pay for their education. The last resort that I would recommend would be to browse the internet yourself. Type in scholarships, college financial help, and grants to find out your information you seek.