In a summer that marked the launch of off-campus and online courses at Duke U., some interested students were unable to participate because of difficulties with financial aid.

The Office of Undergraduate Financial Aid, which learned about the courses just before the start of summer session I, did not have adequate policies in place to allocate funding to students who wished to enroll in these new courses, said Alison Rabil, assistant vice provost and director of Financial Aid.

“Our policies didn’t sit with the way these courses were structured, so we didn’t know how to interpret our policies,” Rabil said. “So we said, ‘Now we need to develop policies for this,’ and that is not always quick. We don’t want our people to be cut short.”

Rabil added that she is meeting with administrators next week to work on fixing the problem.

The nature of the new courses presented problems for the office’s traditional method of distributing aid. One course is taught across both summer sessions, so students are enrolled as less than half-time students for each semester, disqualifying them for financial aid.

Other students were advised against using their aid to enroll in online or off-campus courses because they would not receive allowance for summer room, board or books. 

“The implication was this is not the most effective use of the funds,” Rabil said.

English professor Cathy Shuman, who teaches ENGLISH 109S: “Writing the Experience: Civic Engagement and Creative Nonfiction” said at least three students withdrew from her course after hearing from the financial aid office. The online course requires that students participate in a civic engagement program during the summer in addition to taking the course.

Rising senior Samera Beshir was one of those students. Beshir said she signed up for the class but received an e-mail from her financial aid counselor May 13 informing her that she was not eligible for financial aid because she would be enrolled as a less than half-time student. Beshir would have to enroll in another credit to qualify for aid, the e-mail said.

“I wouldn’t be able to afford summer school during the summer without financial aid, so I had to drop out,” said Beshir, who is participating in the DukeEngage program in Cape Town, South Africa. “It’s basically impossible to take two classes while you are engaging in service-learning.”

Beshir, who said the course would have alleviated some pressure next year because it would have fulfilled some of her graduation requirements, added that she wishes the University could have worked out the issue.

“I think the school wants to give everyone the educational opportunities and doesn’t want money to get in the way of that,” she said. “But to have money again get in the way is disappointing and strays from the intentions of the University, I suppose.”

Rabil said she wishes that more students could have taken advantage of the new courses this summer.

“Unfortunately we had some students who dropped [courses] because they felt they had to drop [them],” Rabil said. “They had tough decisions to make. And now we have to make the administration seamless.”

Shuman said she was upset to learn that finances prevented many students from enrolling in her course, especially since she said about 20 students initially expressed interest in the class, which was capped at 10. Five students are now enrolled, she said.

“Obviously I was disappointed when I thought I would have eight or nine and now I have five,” Shuman said. “I am also disappointed for the students. The course that I am teaching, it’s designed to be the only course that you take. I am really hoping that if we do it again, we start thinking about this issue… and we figure out a way around it.

Rabil said she wants to fix financial aid issues for special courses run during the summer in the future.

“These things kept popping up in my office in not necessarily a consistent way,” she said. “We need to be included in these conversations [about developing new courses]. It wasn’t as well planned in terms of the impact financial aid would have on students as we would have preferred by virtue of the fact that it was a new offering. I am not particularly happy with the way it turned out.”