Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410170037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CRYSTAL CHAPPELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Converting to a new computer system has made a busy season of the year busier for the service, which disburses more than 100,000 loans to college students in Virginia.
"It is a huge undertaking," said Deb Angstadt, director of marketing.
While transferring all of its data base, the service has fielded 2,500 calls a week and disbursed thousands of loans.
The agency has been dealing with one problem after another since the conversion began in June. The system has crashed, students have been told to wait until night to make transactions, and students who have paid off their loans have been asked to pay again. While the crashes normally last just a few hours, the system was down longer when the service was compiling a quarterly report on all of its loans.
Quirks in the system have caused confusion for students who have paid off their loans. If a few dollars were left in the account or an irregular payment made, the computer reads the account incorrectly as having a debt.
"The system is used to showing that you owe something. It is not used to having accounts that it owes you," Angstadt said.
The situation is one of many that have required individual attention. A couple of dozen part-time workers have been brought in for the extra work. In addition, senior managers and workers not affected by the computer conversion have been pressed into service to help respond to inquiries.
"You do what you've got to do," Angstadt said.
The service has had to use Federal Express to disburse loan checks on time. Thousands of checks were distributed in August and September, with 4,000 loans being disbursed on one Monday in August. Loans still are being disbursed.
The new system, the Helms Higher Education Loan Management System, will simplify the disbursement rush by easing the use of electronic funds transfer. Six institutions - Hollins College, George Mason University, James Madison University, Virginia State University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Norfolk State University - are using electronic funds transfer, and another dozen are waiting to begin.
"Maybe pretty soon we will do away with checks on Virginia campuses and have money wired directly," Angstadt said.
Until then, students are encouraged to call back. The Virginia Student Assistance Authorities has two toll-free numbers: (800) 222-8352 and (800) 525-5729.
by CNB