Technology problems at Friends University have persisted for nearly a month, students and families told KWCH. At least one family is still waiting on a financial aid reimbursement normally issued in August.

Students and families told KWCH 12 News the problems, which began roughly a month before the station's Monday, Oct. 12 report, have disrupted campus Wi-Fi, the student information system and financial aid processing. The university has not confirmed an outage occurred, telling KWCH only that it experienced "intermittent technology issues" this semester.

Internal emails from university staff tell a different story. The emails, shared with KWCH, described an outage and work with third-party specialists to fix it.

One parent, who is helping pay tuition at the 1,591-student private university through Parent PLUS loans, said the school's reimbursement had not arrived as of Oct. 12. Tuition and fees at Friends run $34,192 a year, according to U.S. News & World Report.

"Friends is not cheap and paying for college is not cheap and not being able to get refunds is really frustrating," the parent told KWCH.

When KWCH reporters visited campus on Tuesday, Oct. 6, school leaders declined to go on camera and declined to share copies of what had been communicated to students and families. KWCH reported that its earlier calls and emails to the university went unanswered.

Friends University President Amy Bragg Carey has not made a public statement about the disruption.

By Oct. 12, some students said conditions had improved slightly. Student Alyssa Penrose told KWCH she had no problems that day, but her professor had to use a phone to upload an assignment because school computers were still down. Student Gabriela Millan said she experienced Wi-Fi issues the week of Oct. 6 and that her resident assistant helped resolve it.

The frustration ran deeper in early October. Freshman Evy Thurman told KWCH on Oct. 6 that the outage had become routine. "It's almost normal because it's been down for a while," she said. As a new student still learning the university's systems, the disruption hit especially hard.

Student Malia Arensberg told KWCH on Oct. 6 that the university had offered no explanation. Neither KWCH report includes a university recovery timeline.

Bill Ramsey, a Wichita-based cybersecurity professional and vice president of OzSec, told KWCH that recovery timelines vary. Depending on the circumstances, restoring systems could take a month or several months.

Neither KWCH report identifies the cause.