[media-credit name=”Roosevelt Palafox/ Staff” align=”alignright” width=”168″][/media-credit]Walking around campus early each semester, the longest lines are in the Cesar Chavez building at the financial aid line.

California’s economic woes and rising education costs have more students than ever turning to financial aid to help make college affordable. For Christiana Eseller, 19, nutrition major, financial stability has been a complicated goal to achieve after she was declared ineligible for Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and Board of Governors (BOG).

“It is really stressful,” she said. “Trying to keep up grades and almost working full-time at minimum wage.”

Eseller said she pays for schooling on her own.

“If I was able to receive financial aid I would be more motivated because of the lessened stress on me from having to find money for raising tuition and overpriced textbooks,” she said.

Many students insist financial aid is the only way they can continue in school. That is the case for  Julian Rivera, 23, who has been attending SWC since fall of 2010 and has received the BOG waiver since his first semester. Rivera said he is unemployed and was denied FAFSA this semester. Without the BOG waiver, he said, “school would be much more expensive and possibly out of reach.”

“I do not think it is fair because apparently my parents make too much money,” he said. “But I don’t receive help from them.”

Because FAFSA is based on the parent’s income, many students are denied but others benefit. Stephanie Guerrero, 20, nursing, said FAFSA was her lifeline.

“School would be out of my reach without FAFSA,” she said. “I wouldn’t know how to pay for school with out it. I would have to get a full time job to pay for school and have more stress with a full school load and a full time job.”

Guerrero said FAFSA provided incentive to keep her GPA up.

“The requirements are not hard to follow,” she said. “I respect the requirements that FAFSA asks for because I feel they’re reasonable. I keep 12 units every semester to get through my prerequisites and I keep my G.P.A above a 2.0.”

FAFSA and BOG waivers are two types of the financial aid available at SWC. FAFSA is a form the Department of Education (DOE) uses to determine a student’s Expected Family Contribution. Based on parent’s income, students will be granted a certain amount of aid to apply towards college expenses. The BOG waiver subsidizes enrollment fees and is based on financial need.