Taylor had negative two dollars and 30 cents in her bank account a few days ago before her paycheck came in, several weeks too late for comfort. Taylor, in her early twenties, is a student at Cal Poly Humboldt, her first semester there after a few at College of the Redwoods. She’d paid CPH $4,800 for her fall semester, and was expecting to get an equal amount of financial aid around August 14, 10 days before classes started. She didn’t. She had to choose between buying groceries and paying her rent a few weeks before — she went with the groceries, because she couldn’t stretch what she had any further. Her rent was overdue by weeks, but her landlord understands her situation, she told the Outpost, and gave her a break. “But,” she said, “I hate to think of the case where he’s not as lenient.” The rest of her check will go towards paying off other bills: gas, car insurance, car payments, textbooks. 

Taylor — that’s a pseudonym — couldn’t figure out why her money hadn’t come in yet. She checked her online student portal, and learned she hadn’t fulfilled an admissions requirement. Was it a transcript issue? She checked. Nope. Hunky-dory there. She called CPH’s admissions office on August 26. It had been a mistake, they told her; the university had accidentally applied a hold on several hundred students’ financial aid. She could expect her money in a few days. 

A few other students commiserated about the situation on the Cal Poly Humboldt subreddit. Several of them also hadn’t received their aid yet. (They did not respond to requests for an interview.)

They can blame the Trump administration. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the president’s signature 2025 piece of legislation, contained amongst its hundreds of changes to the law, new rules regarding student loans and financial aid, some of which went into effect in July. CPH’s software needs to be updated, said Miriam Miner, CPH’s Interim Director of Financial Aid, and the federal government is still guiding universities through the process.

Undergraduate students taking fewer than 12 units (the minimum number they need to take to be considered full-time) were affected, as were graduate students taking fewer than nine. Miner claimed that they began reaching out to students in July, and would update their Financial Aid website with more information.

“The Financial Aid office is working diligently to get awards out the door, including inputting information manually and updating software used by schools nationwide as quickly as possible as more federal guidance about software updates becomes available,” Miner wrote in a statement sent to the Outpost. “This is an evolving situation and we continue to learn and make adjustments as we go along.”

“Higher education has faced significant regulatory changes since 2020,” Miner continued. “Cal Poly Humboldt actively participates in statewide discussions with other CSU campuses to share tools and practices aimed at supporting students through these changes. The delay does not affect students’ ability to stay enrolled in classes, but we know it can be frustrating and stressful. Our office is always available to meet with students and help address any questions they might have.”

Taylor is stressed and frustrated, vulnerable and far from in-control, but, she said, it could be worse. Taylor’s lived here for a while, and she’s worried for students fresh out-of-town with no support network and an inflexible landlord.

She wishes she’d been notified that there’d been an issue with her aid, she said; she wouldn’t have waited nearly as long to call and ask about it. She might still be on top of her bills, wouldn’t have had to blow through her savings — she didn’t have many to start with, despite working two jobs for months to pay all the bills and her tuition. Even when she gets her refund, she’ll likely still have to wait to buy groceries again. She’s got other bills to pay.