NMC makes amends with its Pell grant recipients

The Northern Marianas College management apologized yesterday to the students for the inconvenience caused them by the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to place NMC on Pell grant reimbursement status.

In an effort to make amends, NMC announced that students who have yet to receive their Pell reimbursements for last academic year’s tuition and fees may enroll for the fall semester. Eligible students may also purchase textbooks at the NMC bookstore starting this Friday and charge the cost to their Pell award.

“[The fact that we’re on reimbursement status] is not the students’ fault; it’s the institution’s fault. The college is doing everything we can to ensure that students are not being penalized for errors we’ve made in the past as an institution,” NMC finance director Raaj Kurapati said.

Starting last year, the federal government placed the college on Pell reimbursement status—instead of advance status—due to the NMC’s failure to submit audits on time in the last four years.

The U.S. Education Department later said the reimbursement status would be lifted as soon as NMC submits three consecutive batches of student applications that contain an error rate of 10 percent or less.

Kurapati, however, maintained that the college is now up-to-date with its audits, after it set a self-imposed March 31 deadline for its 2003 audit—three months ahead of the deadline given by the federal government.

Ray Basa, director of the NMC Financial Aid Office, added that NMC has already been able to submit one batch of clean student files. He expressed confidence that the second and third batches, which will be submitted within the next weeks, will also have minimal errors, if at all.

Further, Kurapati reported that the college currently has receivables of at least $1.3 million for last school year’s academic fees. But despite this, NMC is allowing students who have outstanding obligations to the college to enroll for the fall semester, which opens on Monday.

Basa echoed this, saying that on Friday, the Financial Aid Office will be giving the college bookstore a list of names of students eligible for the Pell grant, as well as the amount that they are entitled to, to enable students to charge the purchase of their textbooks to their Pell award.

This list, he said, will serve as a temporary award, while the final award will be given out next week.

“We apologize for the delay. We have really been short-staffed over the last three to four weeks. But we’re working hard to getting your money issued as soon as possible,” Basa told the students during a forum yesterday afternoon.

At the same time, Basa called on students to cooperate with the college administration regarding the submission of Pell grant applications. He noted that some of the delay stems from the students’ failure to turn in complete requirements or to correct deficiencies in a timely manner.

For his part, NMC president Antonio Deleon Guerrero said the college is working toward resolving the Pell grant issue before the end of the fall semester to avoid having the same problems in the spring semester.

Most of the students rely on Pell grant and other scholarship funds for their education. Pell recipients receive an average of about $2,000 per school year.