Step Up For Students -

Peggy Junk

We have been with SUFS for many years. The last couple of years have been very difficult to get properly reimbursed for approved purchases. Many reimbursements have been improperly denied or put on hold asking for information that was already submitted or not needed for that request. The parent has to waste everyone's time advocating to make sure that the requests are properly approved. I do not recommend it to anyone without letting them know that it will take a lot of time to make sure your child gets what they need for their education. Right now, SUFS says that they have paid parents reimbursements, yet the money has not made it to the bank accounts. The customer service is terrible! The agents are nice, but they don't know the answers, so they cannot help you. It is a waste of everyone's time to call the 877 number or use chat. If you email them, you will get a generic response that doesn't answer your concern or you will get no response at all, so that's a waste of time too. I have asked to speak to a supervisor and it takes about an hour of talking before the agent finally agrees to put in a ticket. The agent says a supervisor will call within 3-5 days. I have received very few supervisor call backs. I'm still waiting on my last several supervisor call backs. They do not have a protocol set up for giving and resolving complaints. It is apparent that SUFS does not care about our special needs kids' education. If you have a question or concern, you will get the most reliable answer with other parents that have been using the scholarship for a while. It's very sad! I'm noticing that a huge majority of the most recent reviews, are 1 star. Many of the 4 or 5 star reviews mention Marc. He is the only representative that I have encountered over the past 7 years that actually knows the scholarship and how to help the parents with the problems that they have. Unfortunately, I haven't been lucky enough to get him on any of my recent encounters with SUFS. It would be a shame if he is no longer working in customer service for SUFS!

Jeff Biskup

This organization is one of the worst run not for profits I have dealt with. I had to switch my daughter’s funding from the private school funding to the home school funding. I contacted them right away in August and followed all their instructions to get this done and switched in time. I followed their instructions only to find out their instructions were wrong, and I no longer can obtain PEP funding as the funds are gone. I have called many times since August through November, and they kept insisting all is good and I will be funded from July 1st. I was now informed on Nov. 15th my form to decline the private school funding is still being reviewed and now the PEP funds are gone. How does it take this long to process a form? Why did they assure me throughout everything I have done is good on my end? I requested to speak with a supervisor to appeal this issue and the employee was rude and did not want to complete this request. After consistently insisting to speak with a supervisor she took my name and said they will call in 3 business days. Sadly, there are no other options to use in future years as we are stuck with this organization but I will be reaching out to as many board members, hopefully some of their management and even my state rep to let them know how poorly this organization is run.

Doug Hunter

While we're very appreciative of the scholarship - the approval process for the reimbursement is arduous. Be prepared to submit a receipt, your credit card statement, and photos of the item that was purchased - then have them kick it back because you didn't choose the expense category that they wanted. Or they tell you it's not an approved expense, and you have to send in an appeal with pages from their purchasing guide showing them that it is in fact an approved expense.

I'm retired but worked in public accounting as an auditor, so believe me when I say their reimbursement is an unnecessarily painful and difficult process. Receiving reimbursement can take up to a month or two.

Angela Wix

My children have been on the UA scholarship for over 7 years. Within the past couple years the scholarship has taken a horrible turn. Reimbursements are a nightmare, customer service is lacking to say the least. You get routed to a foreign call center that never knows any of the policies. You can't even trust them not to rob your children of their funds. Just recently had thousands of dollars go missing from my children's accounts marked as paid yet they never sent any. You have to screenshot everything because you cannot trust this company to follow through. It's so sad when you think about what this scholarship was before they merged with the others and now you cant even get a reimbursement in for months. My children's therapy providers will no longer work with the scholarship because they haven't been getting paid in a timely manner.

Nana Ivory

I have called and email my status of reimbursement and still waiting since April 2024. This program is a joke. Most parents cannot pay off the credit card used to purchase a computer within 30 days (no interest). Thankfully, I have been able to do this for my granddaughter without causing hardship. Her parents would of been payment excessive APR for a computer when this program is supposed to send EFT after the receipt is uploaded.

Nancy Nally

My daughter is a homeschooled FES-UA scholarship recipient. In the past two years, reimbursement processing for submitted expenses has gone from bad to catastrophic. Processors don't read submitted paperwork, and deny clearly covered items, requiring escalations and appeals to correct. They adjust amounts with no explanation. SUFS enforces more and more unwritten rules about purchases that aren't in any of the guides or handbooks, leaving parents on the hook for what should be covered purchases if they haven't heard about them via parent-run Facebook groups that circulate word about these made up rules. And now on top of all of that, SUFS is losing money from parent accounts and payments that used to be deposited in 1-3 days are taking a month or more to be paid out AFTER approval of the reimbursement paperwork. This is outrageous and the FL OIG needs to step in.

AnnJ Magee

This organization really leaves a lot to be desired. The mismanagement of funds is unbelievable. Parents/caregivers go through providing all of the information & solid verification to “Step up for students “ for a reimbursement of their child’s educational items, only to have it sit around. Literally a reimbursement will sit around for weeks either awaiting approval , or once it is approved, then it also sits there: pending payment. It has gotten worse over the years, but this year is the worst by far. This year parents have received notification that their bank would be sent funds for approved reimbursements(but never was) and that went on for weeks until parents/caregivers all started calling and emailing legislators, making people aware what was going on.Suddenly things finally started to get taken care of for maybe a week or 2. Now we’re back to the same thing. Tons of reimbursements that have been approved that people are awaiting payments, they’re just sitting there. Now their customer service team is sending us(parents/caregivers) emails telling us that “Oh it’s the bank your bank and our bank, 10 days!” Actually, they haven’t even initiated sending anything to the bank for it to take that 10 days which it doesn’t even take that 10 days. They are opening up a ticket request ,requests to find out where missing money is when truly there’s no reason to open up a ticket. The issue is:A lack of paying the pending payments. Is it that this organization has run out of the money? The DOE just sent them money to distribute to multiple scholarships. Did the money run out already? There seems to be so so many issues. The next time a reporter contacts us, we should actually speak to them instead of declining comment. * Please do not respond with the blanket phone number that goes to a call center where we are told some really wild information. I have been told so much misinformation in the last 6 months,never receive the same information twice.

Erabella001

I've been waiting 2yrs for them to correct a mistake on my son funds. On a recent updated email I was told there is no time table for the problem to be corrected.