(What I'm sure will be) The Ongoing Sasga of Financial Aid

My financial aid forms were finally processed and put through yesterday. I don't know how or why this very important work was done on a Saturday. My guess is for shock value.

I filed my FAFSA as soon as I heard that I was accepted to school -- back in May or so. Within a few weeks, I had received my financial aid "award package." They call it this to make it sound like something fun and exciting, when, in my case at least, the "award package" actually turns out to be a soul-crushing denial of what you may think you're worth to a school. It's like they know only a crazy person would turn down Columbia, and everyone else will surely find some way to cough up the cash.

Not that coughing up cash is a big deal to most of the people I've seen around TC so far. In my 35-person summer class, I was one of only two people holding down a job. That means there were at least 33 people spending $3000 or so dollars on a class and $xbajillion living in Manhattan on...their inheritances? Money saved from their previous lives as abstemious bankers? Highly mysterious; I must learn their secrets.

I have no money. Columbia chose not to believe this when doling out my "award," and I proved that they were right in doing so by agreeing to attend, and pay, anyway. Sometimes I wonder if this was some kind of test -- "Are you really stupid enough to go thousands of dollars into debt for this? Then ACCEPTANCE RESCINDED. We don't need fools tarnishing our good name." So far I have not been kicked out, mostly thanks to my dad taking the hit for Summer tuition (though I did pay for my book, which, despite being an electronic [i.e. almost totally free to produce] version, cost around $90. how do you explain that?).

So yes, anyway, my Fall/Spring/Summer financial aid has come through, leaving me with living expenses -- but, hey, not tuition! -- to worry about. Yay! It only took months and months and months, through which I fretted constantly over whether everything was going through correctly. I think I called or visited the financial aid offices at least half a dozen times since getting accepted, always with a different way of phrasing the question, "So how can I get some money from you people?" I was put on academic probation for about a week -- they said because of a computer glitch, but I think it was just to get me to ask them something different.

I'm not sure if this means I should always trust financial aid to come through in the end, or if it means I should never ever trust financial aid to do things without half a dozen desperate calls. Those people thrive on drama.