All of us have made the dreaded trek to the financial aid and business offices. Sometimes you leave with answers; sometimes you’re left walking back and forth from office to office trying to figure your financial problems out on your own.
In these hard economic times, Cabrini students are struggling financially to remain enrolled in college and are in and out of these offices a lot more often than usual.
We are aware that the college took a hit this year with both a small freshman class and with a large number of students not returning after last year.
Now more than ever, the Loquitur believes that the college should be pro-active in assisting students with our financial aid and billing problems. Loquitur has suggestions to improve retention and make it more possible for students to remain at the college.
Just as every student has an academic adviser to turn to, similarly every student should have a financial adviser. Just as our academic adviser is in our corner helping us to negotiate complex problems, there should be a single financial person whom we can meet with, who is on our side, who knows the best way to handle our complex financial problems.
Why do we walk back and forth between the Mansion and Grace Hall, not knowing who can help us solve our problem financial problems?
The Loquitur staff believes that these offices should be located in the same building working together in unison. Loquitur also believes the attitude of the staff should be similar to what we find with our academic advisers: friendly, helpful and welcoming to all students.
We shouldn’t be stressed just thinking about the walk to the Mansion or Grace Hall to deal with these financial matters.
Obviously in any business or organization there needs to be offices that deal with money and payments, but there should be places that you feel comfortable going to, knowing that things will be taken care of.
If the offices were in one building students wouldn’t be confused about what office handles what financial issue. Students wouldn’t be sent back and forth between the two offices because of lack of communication.
Think about how your problems are handled at any store you go to. If you don’t like the way customer service goes about helping you out, you’re most likely not going to want to go back to that store.
Considering the retention rate is low, shouldn’t we make sure that every aspect of Cabrini from the marketplace to the business and financial aid offices are welcoming? In no way are we saying that this is the single reason why the retention rate is down, but in trying to bring these numbers up, shouldn’t every aspect of Cabrini make students feel as if this college is where they should be?
Cabrini has so much to offer. Students want to be here. But many of us are struggling to remain here and we believe that the business and financial aid offices should actively assist students in their college experience. In the end, we have decided to attend Cabrini and we are paying the money to attend; each and every one of us should be treated like Cabrini’s number one customer.
