Have you ever heard of the world "matriculation" ?
Wikipedia defines it as, "Matriculation, in the broadest sense, means to be registered or added to a list.... The most common meaning, however, refers to the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by acquiring the meeting prerequisites."
Well I came across this word in what I feel is an odd way of learning that you are about to get screwed over again because you DON'T understand the rules of the game.
Well... I'm a 2nd year grad student at American University and I'm done with all my classes. I have this take home Comp Exam I need to do and a Master Thesis to write in order to graduate. Simple right? Well this year as you all know is an election year and because my time has been swallowed by editing videos for political candidates I decided not to rush through my thesis but to leave it for the spring. But that I could at least take the Comp Exam this year. So I signed up for the exam this summer but had to post pone it for the fall (I still don't know when the damn thing is due). Well one day I start getting phone calls and letters about my school loan debt. (It's around $100,000... i think) Turns out someone sent them a letter stating that I had been out of school since the spring so they all moved up the due dates for my loan payments to November (something like $1000 a month). Remember its only October. SURPRISE! So I'm like... wtf...I'm not a student? Well I signed up for the Comp Exam and I don't need any more classes...so what do I do? Well after talking to my SO HELPFUL adviser (j/k) turns out for AU's grad program you need to have been registered for both Fall & Spring or otherwise you must be re admitted into the program and that the Comp Exam doesn't really count as anything. SO I'm not technically a student (last day of registration was weeks ago) and I will start paying my dues very soon. BUT there is a loop whole. If I register for "Matriculation , COMM-099?" I will be a student again and it only costs the price of one grad credit (though it doesn't have a credit value), which is $1178!
So I can be a student again just by forking over $1200? Hmmm...something about this whole set up sounds weird and anti-student. But whatever, I guess its in the fine print that nobody reads.
Well I dropped the check in the mail the other day. Don't spend it all in one place.
PS> Has anyone ever experienced this before?