There were parts of what I described that were brutally difficult. Particularly, we would receive a certain $ amount to purchase books (that were frequently $500+ dollars per semester). However, the office that doled this fund out would frequently be weeks behind, or your scheduled disbursement just wouldn’t show up. Then you’d have to find multiple hours out of your work week to go down to the financial aid office to wait in line for hours in an office that was only open 10am-2pm. Or sometimes the complete scam of a bank/card they forced you to use had some issue.

So, frequently, you wouldnt even be able to purchase books without a loan or extending credit til 1-2 months into the semester. by that time you could be having midterms and tons of assignment with no textbooks. I would frequently have to beg other students to let me photocopy sections of their books so I could do the assignments. Or resort to pirating.

To them that’s “working as intended” I guess. no amount of complaining ever got anywhere.