I am not at all surprised by the experience related in this report. I spent several years at UMass Amherst as a returning adult student, and found the university to be a nightmare of red tape and bureaucracy.
I too had experiences with financial problems caused by the university. On situation involved two years in a row when the Financial Aid office failed to put together my aid package until late April of one year and early May the next year. For each of two years in a row, I went essentially the entire academic year—until just two or three weeks short of the year's end—without financial aid.in both years I had filed all my paperwork on time. It was entirely due to the Financial Aid office's failure to put my package together that I had no financial aid. Meantime, the Bursar's office took the bureucratic attitude that the reason my bill was not paid was no concern of theirs, even though it was entirely the university's fault. They indicated that their job was simply to collect money, and have the student withdrawn if the bill was not paid. I went those two academic years under the constant threat of being withdroawn as a student, and also losing my income and the roof over my head, as I held a student job and lived in a dorm, both of which depended on my status as a student.
Like the person making this report, I had trouble with pay, etc., related to student employment.in my case, I was an undergraduate student, but had a roughly similar experience, with repeated instances of receiving fewer hours than promised in my student job, being shorted on pay, etc., all while faced with the very tight financial situation often faced by students, where being short on even one paycheck had the potential to put me into immediate financial difficulty.
I had many other difficulties with mishandling of my affairs in university offices. One semester I was initially not permitted to register for classes because records indicated that I had graduated. This was when I was still at least three semesters short of fulfilling my major requirements. I found that it was generally very difficult to locate and arrange a meeting with anyone with the real authority to correct a situation at UMass. This often involved as long as two weeks of being bounced from office to office, having administrators fail to keep appointments I had made with them, waiting days to see someone I was told could deal with a situation, only finally to see that person and be told that I had to see someone else, which would involve more days of waiting, broken appointments, etc. I would also repeatedly encounter the attitude that students were causing employees a problem by expecting employees to correct their errors which were causing students problems, as well as a generally hostile attitude toward students, and disinterest among many (not all, but many) employees in doing their jobs properly. After going through this process in the case of my supposed graduation, I finally got that corrected, only to find out months later, when the federal government agency that handles student loans began threatening to sue me for not making any repayments on my loans, that UMass had informed them that I had graduated, meaning that I would then be required to begin repaying loans, but had neglected to follow up by sending them the updated information that I had not graduated after all. I notified UMass Registrar's office that I would need them to inform the federal agency of the correct information. It took them six weeks to do so. Meanwhile I continued to be harassed with threats of a lawsuit.
Then there was the time my university computer account was shut down, leaving me unable to complete work as I did not have my own computer at the time. It turned out that this had happened because the lists of current students the Registrar's office would send the IT department every few days kept leaving off my name, though I was a paid and registered student. It took several weeks to get this resolved, with my being unable to do work on a computer in the meantime.
Partway through my time at UMass, I changed majors from math to English. The first semester I tried to study as an English major, I was shut out of all courses that counted toward the major. This happened because whatever office was crucial in this lost all record of the fact that I had placed out of freshman writing—a prerequisite for all English major classes—as a result of previous college work that had transferred to UMass.
When I transferred out of UMass, it turned out that the university health center had lost my medical records. Fortunately I was in good health, with no vital information that would be needed by future doctors, but my lack of any kind of health record (by now, it had been long enough that all previous physicians had closed their records on me) meant that in order to enroll at the college I transferred to, I had to obtain three vaccinations for a second time, at 25 to 30 dollars a shot.
I was involved in a very ugly incident where, as a result of happening to be in the location where the situation developed, I went to the aid of a traumatized female student, who, at least apparently, had just a short time before been drugged and raped by a university employee. This upset young woman was able to get out just enough information in her distressed state for me to realize something was very wrong, so I chose to get the Campus Police involved. For some time afterwerd as a result, the employee in question faced criminal charges, which were later dropped amid rumors that I heard to the effect that the girl he had apparently raped was under pressure to drop charges if she wanted to keep her student job. For the next six months, approximately, I was harassed in various ways by the employee, who at one point even threatened to kill me. I was also harassed in various ways by a university administrator who apparently sided with the employee for internal political reasons. I tried to seek help from various offices in the university, only to get the usual runaround.
I had several housing issues at UMass. I lived in housing for older students which was advertised as appropriate for mature students, i.E., quiet. Usually this was the case, but this building was open year-round, and the convenient place for the university to house any student needing housing during school break periods, including younger summer school students and foreign students. Too frequently for a dorm that was portrayed as a quiet place for a mature, serious student there were problems with noise from these younger residents.
There were several semesters when I did not receive my housing bill, and was threatened with eviction from the dorm because my bill was unpaid. I would go to the Housing office and be told that they could not give my bill there in person, but would mail it to me. Still, no bill would arrive. The Bursar's office refused to accept payment without being presented with a bill. I would return to Housing and be told they would mail the bill. Still no bill in the mail. Meanwhile I would be threatened with eviction for an unpaid bill. I was still pursuing this issue over a year after leaving UMass. I would contact the Bursar's office trying to get information on all back bills. They would tell me that their records showed I was all paid up. Then I received a notice from a collection agency demanding that I pay a back bill for "UMass tuition." I owed nothing for tuition. I had back bills only for housing, which I had been trying to pay, but been told by Bursar's that I did not owe. It took about five months of dealing with the UMass burecucracy after I received the collection notice before I finally had the correct information on back bills and got them paid. They then tried to include a collection fee, which I refused to pay.
The final dealing with UMass: I had been away from UMass about a year and a half, when I received notice that I must return a library book which I had lost two years previously and had paid for in full as a lost book. The library notice said I would be fined if I did not return the book soon. A book I had already paid for as a lost book. I ignored that notice, and then received yet another about a year later, fully two and a half years after I had transferred out of UMass. I ignored that notice and heard no more about the issue, but it really got ridiculous that I was still being hassled by UMass so long after having broken my association with them, all because they could not get their records straight.
Be aware that this was UMass Amherst. I have had no experience with any other UMass campus, and cannot comment on those. Based on my experience at the Amherst campus, I would strongly advise prospective students to avoid that school at all costs.
0 comments