Financial Aid

Jeremy went to school today for orientation. He stopped by to finish up all of his financial aid stuff. They told him that he hadn't registered for Selective Services, so he wasn't eligible for any financial aid.

I would like to say something right now. I married the most straight as an arrow man ever to walk the face of this earth. He has always complied with every aspect of US law that he is aware of. He knew about Selective Services (how could he not?) and he registered for Selective Services.

But now he's 31. He is no longer in the Selective Services, so he doesn't have his card anymore. So he gets home at 11:35, after he had been working through the night and then gone up to the school for orientation and dealt with Financial Aid. He calls the number the FA lady gave him, and the automated menu looks him up, but doesn't recognize him. The poor man is dead tired. Now he's trying to remember...did he really sign up for Selective Services? He MUST have, he knew it was the law, and he loves his country. There's no reason why he wouldn't. So he calls back. Goes through all the menus again. Finally, he gets an option to speak to someone. The estimated wait time is 38 minutes! All he wants to do is go to bed, but he has to get this cleared up today or pay for his classes all by himself. So I stayed on hold while Jeremy had something to eat. I finally talked to a lady, and she looked him up. It turns out, one of the digits for his Social Security number was off by a digit in their records. Oops. So she's going to send us verification of his enrollment, but FA wants proof today. I hope they can get it all cleared up. Poor Jeremy keeps running into new obstacles.

I told him we may end up having to wait until next quarter. But he doesn't want to hear that of course. I think he wants to get doing it before he has the chance to think about it hard enough to chicken out. I understand, but now I don't know what to do to encourage him. Why do these things seem to happen to us more often than others? Does it seem to you like we have an inordinately large amount of bureaucratic hang-ups? And now for the most important question: "Why me?" ;)