Students continue to scramble to the colleges to fix errors in registration after many were incorrectly dropped for nonpayment and others were unable to access the new student services portal, ACES, under the Banner system.
Some were dropped because they paid for classes with financial aid and a canceled course affected aid eligibility. The online system then dropped all of the students' courses for nonpayment during a series of online purges.
Many students stood in lines for hours trying to fix errors that charged their account for unnecessary three-peat and out-of-state tuition rates because of the system drops.
Others paid weeks ago with scholarships, cash or credit cards, yet still encountered one or more dropped classes.
Dr. Thomas Cleary, vice chancellor for planning, performance and information systems, said despite the challenging registration, early enrollment figures show 62,443 students.
Last fall, the five colleges registered about 58,000 students.
Faculty and staff at the five Alamo Colleges are working on little but assisting students to solve technical problems with Banner.
Cleary said he visited this college and St. Philip's College Wednesday to talk to students about registration issues and is creating a list of changes that need to be made to the student services portal.Cleary said one problem he had not seen before Wednesday was students unable to update an address at their home college because this process is being handled at the center for student information at 8300 Pat Booker Road.
Cleary said this is something students should be able to do at their home college.
He also discovered staff at St. Philip's College stopped producing student IDs Wednesday because there was not enough money in the budget to purchase a printing ribbon.
The ID center at this college also closed for a lack of supplies today. A sign on the door said issuing cards is expected to continue next week.
Chancellor Bruce Leslie sent a welcome memo Tuesday to faculty, staff and students apologizing for the wait lines and thanking everyone for patience and understanding.
He attributed problems to the recent elimination of staff, increase in class size, introducing new technologies and "re-engineering over 500 business processes" in a short timeframe to cut $12 million in operating costs.
The district budget has been strained since May when Gov. Rick Perry announced a severe cut in state appropriations.
Last week, 15,000 reimbursement checks were mailed to students and 4,400 checks were mailed Monday.
Cleary said many features and functionalities, including access to online transcripts, will be added to ACES soon. He equivocated on a specific date.
At this college, hundreds of students have lined up in the lobby of the business office in Fletcher Administration Center since Monday.
A staff member announced to the back of the line Tuesday morning that all checks would be mailed to them Thursday if they hadn't yet received it.
Political science freshman Daniel McConnell said no one had any idea what happened to his financial aid check.
"I asked three people and I got three different answers," he said. McConnell was finally told his check would be mailed to him.
Robert Parisi, political science sophomore at this college, said he was still waiting for his financial aid award from Summer 1 classes.
Students from the other colleges in the district also experienced problems with the registration process this week.
At St. Philip's College, when students entered the new welcome center, they checked in and were directed to either financial aid, counseling or the bursar's office.
The college provided couches and chairs for students because of the long lines.
Culinary arts freshman Brandon Martinez and his mother, Monica Martinez, had been waiting for an hour and half at about 5 p.m. Tuesday to check his financial aid and update his ACES account.
Brandon Martinez said he had been encountering problems with financial aid and the ACES website since June.
"We've been here almost every week," he said. His first problem was he had been assigned two Banner ID numbers because the first ID number didn't work.
Computer lab technician Benjamin Salazar is among employees drafted to assist with registration. He helps students reset passwords.
Salazar, who works behind a table that reads "ACES issues," said, "We aren't having many problems at all."
But business administration sophomore Patrice Hall first started experiencing problems with ACES two weeks ago when it incorrectly showed her birth date.
"It was a domino effect of problems after that," she said. After her birth date was corrected, Hall could not log into ACES and tech support wasn't returning her phone calls so she had to visit the campus until her password was finally reset.
The dean of student success at St. Philip's College, Paul Machen, said personnel have been working hard to tackle problems as they come in.
"From the president down, we are taking calls, including myself," he said.
Machen said the college has set up extra phone banks and employees are working the floors to answer students' questions.
On Tuesday, Machen said lines were so long at the second floor of the welcome center, he "thought the floors were going to fall through."
Machen said they could not resolve financial aid problems because some of it was out of their control.
"Students are getting dropped whose financial aid has been awarded," Machen said.
He said students who try to make changes that change their eligibility are being dropped instantly from all their classes.
Machen said students are frustrated with ACES and their financial aid problems, but they are not angry.
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