Lest We Forget

I have had a long and annoying enmity towards the Bursar's Office, Financial Aid Office, and Admissions Office of Kennesaw State University. At *least* once a semester I nearly get thrown out of school because the FA office has lost something or not filed something- It's gotten to the point I go up there at least every two weeks throughout a semester to make sure things are running smoothly (and regardless of how many "things are great" reports I get something still goes wrong). And to fix any sort of problem it requires trekking back and forth from Financial Aid to the Bursar's to Admissions, back and forth across the Green at least three times, since each office will tell you the problem is with another office.

This time the thing that went wrong was my Study Abroad. The school credited all my student loan money to the school debit card we're all assigned, and the school debit card (I later learned) has a spending limit on it. Lower than the tuition.

So, while I was over in Italy I tried to pay off my Study Abroad, oh, six or seven times. Each time the transaction would sort of go through, you'd get an online receipt for the purchase but two weeks later it would come back saying they couldn't complete the transaction and could I try again. Which for a while gave me the heebee jeebies that they'd send me home while I was in the middle of Pompeii.

I get home, try to pay again (at the time I thought perhaps the spending limit was because I was in another country) but no luck and another two weeks go by before I know it didn't work. So I head to the Bursar's Office, nest of surliness though it is, with a bill KSU sent me in my hand and explain I have been trying to pay them for months. I get a sort of blank stare and...

"Well, you can pay it in check or cash right now. Do you have the cash now?"

Right. Guess how much is left of the Study Abroad? No. I do not carry around that much money. I don't think anyone does.

She tells me I can use the school ATM right behind me, so I lose my place in line to go check the machine out, and guess what? It's broken. Or off. I tell her so and she's like *shrug* and goes back to whatever she's doing.

So, I head to my bank, find out what the transaction limit is (finally), see if the bank can circumvent it, find out they can't, start a campaign against all the ATMs in the area for two weeks to pull all the cash I need. Mom deposits all of it, then writes a check, and I go back to the Bursar's Office with both.

They take them, I get a receipt. Looks like it's all well and done, now doesn't it?

Wrong!

Since I didn't pay the money back in... September or so, I couldn't register for classes during early registration which was in November. The next registration (btw, classes start this Thursday) starts today. Monday. 10AM.

I log on to check my registration time and hey, guess what, there's a hold on my account because...

I haven't paid for my study abroad.

And I have the receipt in hand. To make matters even more... Whatever adjective you want to use to describe this... The same site I'm on, if I go to the part that itemizes my tuition semester by semester it shows the money I paid as having arrived. With the totals of cash and check and all that. And besides the note on there claiming I haven't paid yet, there's a notice of a fee.

Funny. There wasn't a fee when I went in there and paid the thing in the middle of December. There wasn't a fee on any of the bills they've sent me. There wasn't a fee when I was in Italy trying to pay the thing five months ago.

So, I've got to head up there, bills and photocopies of receipts in hand, will probably be met by employees that are more jaded than third shift waitresses in the bad part of town, do some yelling and paper waving, and hopefully I'll be able to register for classes if this all gets cleared up today. And since this is late registration I'll be happy if I can get into Underwater Basketweaving 1101 and whatever 4000+ level History classes I can get Professor Shealy to write me into.