My name is Richard X. Thripp and I am a photographer, Daytona State College student, and the creator of DaytonaState.org.
This blog.
Has been here.
Since July 20, 2008.
Is it true that earlier this year the legislature voted to cut awards by 20%? That seems like a lot. Some scholarships are funded by state lotteries, which seems like an excellent idea — on a side note, what happens if someone “wins” the big lottery? That doesn’t affect scholarship funding, does it?
Like Allison, I was also a victim of such change in our school system. I was terrified because I almost lost my scholarship. I gotta work double time to sustain my needs at school.
Is anyone concerned a convicted sexual predator Richard Drinkard is wandering around our campus sitting next to us in class and noone said a word to warn us???
Now that DBCC has turned into a so called, “State College”, I feel it has made a turn for the worst. More and more people I talk to are failing their classes, including myself, mostly in part because the cirriculum has become harder and the teachers have become vague with their teaching. I think that this is being done on purpose so that students fail and have to pay to retake the class so the college can get more money out of us poor local students. “Daytona State College”, has made it nearly impossible for the students that have to work full time to earn a degree. The teachers let the classes out early at night and give much more work then what they used to when it was “Daytona Beach Community College”. Some of the teachers rush to get the night classes done with so they can go home. I don’t think this is fair because I pay to be taught and they don’t spend the amount of time teaching that they are suppose to. I feel like the students at “Daytona State College”, have all became a number and not a student. I feel that the teachers are trained to fail people, not to teach them. Additionally, now that it has become a “State College”, to see someone in Financial Aid takes hours and if you call you can never get someone to pick up. They put you on hold and leave you on hold like they forgot about you. Also, now that it has become a “State College”, I do not get my Pell Grant like when I did when it was a Community College. I have talked to others and some people have had their scholarships cut due to it becomming a “State College”. This is my theory on all of it. Now that it has became a “State College”, and they have built new buildings they have made a way for paying for the buildings by having the teachers fail so many students in each of their classes and by cutting the Pell Grants and Scholarships. I had no problem with my grades until “DBCC”, became “Daytona State College”. I have spoke to many other students and they all feel the same way.
I didn’t get any Pell grant this semester either, apparently because I made $5000 last year working. My parents made more too, but that doesn’t mean I get any of that.
My courses and professors are as difficult / helpful as before, but I noticed people don’t seem as nice at bldg. 100… they’re under a lot of stress maybe? It’s probably coming from the top down, as people don’t become rude and unhelpful for no reason. That’s why you always have to flip things around.
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the financial aid dept. not providing financial aid quickly, so many students can’t pay their tuition which they would do with the money from the financial aid dept. Seems funny to me, because it’s basically one department lending money to another department. That’s a state college for ya. 
Richard,
We received the same note from BF.
I think you are confused. Bright futures has REDUCED your “college-related expense allowance” (books).
$375.00 is all you get for the ENTIRE YEAR… not just one semester.
Per semester, you get @ $187.00, instead of the previous $225.00.
You said you spent $340.00 on books this semester. It looks like you have $35.00 left for books next semester.
Dual enrollment is still the way to go.
@Jason: You’re right, I misread that. Read this:
Correction: Florida Academic Scholars bonus reduced to $187.50
Richard, I just wanted to let you know, I posted a follow up to our DBCC, DBC, DSC blog conversation.
Thanks, Lisa! Lisa’s follow-up is to my post, Is Daytona State College not cool?, for everyone reading in confusion. Her post is here.
I wasn’t thinking of the gradual evolution of the college, but you’re right, it has gotten a lot grander over the years, and is much more worthy of the “state” title now. The dual-enrollment thing is great, particularly for being free. I thought about using it but didn’t because I was far enough ahead in high school and had the BrightFutures scholarship coming.
Thanks for the interesting response! This is what makes the blogosphere great.
[...] = “pub-5149869439810473″;google_ad_slot = “8600969225″;google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;Jason alerted me that the email I got from the FL department of education means $375 for the whole school [...]
Richard X. Thripp at 2011-04-23T17:24:46.One thing that concerns me is the math courses have gotten much harder because you can’t use a graphing calculator anymore (except on stats and possibly chemistry). The rationale is the other universities (FSU, UCF, etc.) don’t allow graphing calculators on their math exams so DSC shouldn’t either, but I found using a computerized tool on math problems gave me a top-down perspective on math rather than a bottom-up perspective, and as such made the course material easier to understand and retain.
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