Students to wait longer for Federal PLUS Loans

By Ryan Martin

Published Oct. 2, 2007

Students who expected to receive their Federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students on Monday will have to wait "another few weeks," according to an e-mail sent by Student Financial Aid Director Joe Camille to students applying for the loan.

The original delay dates back to this summer. Students were notified then that the process would be completed by the beginning of October.

The delays are a result of the new myZou software, the size and complexity of MU's campus, and the fact that the PLUS loans are the most complicated type of loan to process, MU spokesman Christian Basi stated in an e-mail.

MyZou, which began implementation in November 2005, integrates information from the students for processing the loans.

PLUS loans are only available to a dependent student's parents and require additional information from the parents. MyZou requires the Student Financial Aid Office to do extra work to input that additional information.

Since all student information is recorded within myZou, all other loans could already be processed.

The Student Financial Aid Office is working to make myZou flexible enough to handle each student's parents' information, Basi said.

MU Registrar Brenda Selman said the challenge with myZou is that after the system was released this fall, each new student's information has to move through four phases before students could receive their PLUS loan aid.

"This isn't like software off the shelf where you plug it in and go," Selman said. "It's a very massive, complex system."

With the new system, MU can no longer complete loan processes outside of myZou.

Once the university has gone through the steps to get the setup and basic processes completed within myZou, students shouldn't expect any more delays, Selman said.

The delay has restricted the release of approximately 2,700 PLUS loans, totaling $8.6 million.

The Student Financial Aid director said he expects the PLUS loans processed within a few weeks, but Basi said a specific date couldn't be determined at this time.

MU is offering interest-free temporary loans to students who are affected by the delay. As of Sept. 26, MU had issued more than $250,000 in temporary loans, Basi said.

UM-Kansas City encountered similar problems. Some UMKC students waited until last week to receive certain types of aid.

Part of the delay for UMKC is due to PATHway, the school's new software system. The Financial Aid and Scholarships Office is the last to add its processes to the system because it requires information from all the other offices to correctly certify aid, UMKC Financial Aid Director Jan Brandow said.

Students at UMKC were primarily waiting on Graduate PLUS Loans and Federal Parent PLUS Loans. The office finished certifying all their loans last week, with disbursement beginning last Monday.

PATHway began implementation in 2005, but it didn't become fully effective for all students until this fall.

Like MU, the UMKC Financial Aid and Scholarships Office is offering temporary interest-free loans to students waiting on their aid.