I want you all to witness my saying something nice about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. I disagree with his personal and political views on every single count, but what just happened is enough for me to publicly say something nice and thank him. Over the fold...
I used to be a Virginia resident, and I attend college in Alabama under a program called Academic Common Market (ACM). ACM allows you to pursue a major of your choice that is not offered in the State of Virginia at a participating college in the southeast, and receive in-state tuition for it. Since no colleges in Virginia had meteorology, I got to choose between a college in Mississippi or a college in Alabama -- and I chose the one in Alabama. (If that doesn't make sense...Virginia doesn't offer meteorology, so I got to go to Alabama and take meteorology, and still get in-state tuition).
I attended the university for Fall and Spring semesters last year, and over the summer, I came back to Virginia. In June, my mom's job transferred her down here to North Carolina, so we moved out of the State of Virginia. Since ACM is based upon your residency in Virginia, I thought I was going to lose my in-state tuition. I started looking through Virginia Domiciliary laws, and found a provision in Article II, Section 6 that states:
Article 2 - Special Rule for Determining Domiciliary Residence
Section 06. Extended Eligibility for in-state tuition rates.
If the person through whom the dependent student or unemancipated minor established such domicile and eligibility for in-state tuition abandons his Virginia domicile, the dependent student or unemancipated minor shall be entitled to such in-state tuition for one year from the date of such abandonment. To qualify:
- The parent, legal guardian, or spouse must have been domiciled in Virginia for at least one full year prior to abandoning his Virginia domicile.
We lived in the State of Virginia for 14 years, so the end of that doesn't affect me. We left the State of Virginia and moved to North Carolina at the end of June...so I figured that the one year grace period would apply to me.
Starting in mid-July, I called the State Council for Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) to inquire about this provision, and I was transferred to the ACM director.
No answer.
I called back a little while later.
No answer. It rolled to voicemail and the voicemail was broken.
Over the next few days, I sent several emails and called several times. Every single email I sent went unreplied, and every time I called, the phone went unanswered.
I played chicken with the office for 17 days. Yes, SEVENTEEN DAYS. I got to talk to someone 4 times, each time I was told someone would call me back the next morning. Nobody ever called me back.
I called this afternoon and, yet again, I was rolled to a broken voicemail. My tuition is due on Sunday August 29. I can't play these BS games anymore, so I understandably got pissed off. What did I do?
I called Gov. McDonnell's office.
I left a voicemail and told them what was going on. I've been calling SCHEV for 17 days and nobody will answer the phone, nobody will return my emails, and when someone does answer the phone, nobody ever calls me back. I needed to know if I was going to keep my in-state tuition, or if I needed to pay out-of-state, and that my college education was in danger because the agency was playing phone games with me.
About 10 minutes later, I got a phone call back from a higher-up at SCHEV. He told me he apologized for what was going on, he'd look into it, and he'd do a little research into my question.
He called me back about 5 minutes later, and told me that I was eligible for the one year grace period with in-state tuition according to the law. I just need to send a fax and everything is good.
I don't know if Gov. McDonnell helped me personally, or if someone else in his office did. All I know is that 17 days of telephone hell was ended in 10 minutes after I called his office.
If you take nothing else out of this diary, remember these two things.
- Read the legalese. It helps, even if you don't understand it. Look for keywords like I did, that's how I found the provision that helped me go back to college.
- Call your governor. No matter what party, no matter how out-on-a-limb he or she is, they can and will help on occasion.
I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Governor McDonnell.