Brittany Tolleson
The Communicator

It’s estimated that nearly 250 Military veterans currently enrolled at SFCC utilize their Military college
benefits. “We have almost 1,000 veteranshere, but the people that are applyingfor benefits right now are about
250” Veterans resource coordinator
Steven Ward
said.
Applying for
and receiving
benefits is usually
a simple, however
within the
last few months
many have
voiced concerns over issues with it.
Veteran students have voiced complaints
towards the head of financial
aid and the Veterans Admissions Office
during the last 6 months due to
slow certification, low staffing, and
improper paperwork filing.
“Between last year and this year we
had a pretty rough time because our
certifying official quit mid-year” Tony
Diaz said. “Unfortunately the school
didn’t fill that position right away so
we had a lot of people backing up,
missing certifications, not knowing
exactly what paperwork was turned
in.”
From March
2013 through September
2013 the
Veterans admissions
office utilized
work-studies
to temporarily take
over until a replacement
was found. During that
time, however, many veterans reported
issues.
“When certifying, we have to follow
the VA’s rules, the VA’s guidelines.
There are certain days that you
need to be certified in order to get
your pay in a timely manner. It’s our
responsibility to get our registration,
our schedules and whatnot to our
certifying official, and it’s their job
to get that done”, Said Toni Graham.
“It’s not something you can just put
in alphabetically with the rest of the
populace, because it’s a totally separate
issue and process and thats not
what was happening.”
The Communicator tried reaching
Marjorie Davis, head of Financial
Aid, for comment but was unable to
do so.
“Our speculation is that we were
just thrown in the pile” Graham said.
“Instead of hiring a new certifying official
[someone] was trying to do it
all on her own and [they] were just
throwing them in the pile.”
Barbara Williams knows all too
Waiting to be heard: Student veterans
Brittany Tolleson | The Communicator