Wall Street's crisis is having ripple effects in Western Virginia as a handful of area colleges and universities are waiting on delayed student loan proceeds.

Intermediaries that arrange federal student loans are struggling to access all the cash pledged to students in time for the current school semester that got under way several weeks ago.

As a result, some schools are choosing to carry students whose money has not shown up with short-term emergency financial assistance.

The situation is an outgrowth of the global credit crisis and an indirect effect of the glut of bad mortgage debt weighing down the financial industry.

But lending officials predict it will be resolved soon -- certainly sooner than the underlying credit crisis itself.

Laura Bower, a spokeswoman for student lender Edamerica, said the company has yet to fulfill agreements with several institutions but expects to do so this month.

Edamerica said Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke will receive money it was due Sept. 23 by Oct. 15. Roanoke College will get the rest of the money borrowed by its students for the first semester on Oct. 15 as well.

"These are circumstances beyond our control," Bower said.

The company is notifying students.

One of those students is Brittany Gray, who is studying social work at Longwood University in Farmville.

"They reassure us we're on the list ... for the money to be disbursed," said Donna Wohlford of Roanoke County, Gray's mother.

"All you can do is wait and see."

Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of finaid.org and an analyst who follows the college financial aid industry, said the disruptions are a symptom of the reduced amount of credit available in the financial system. The delays could be short-lived, he said.

"This should, in theory, resolve itself within a few weeks," he said.

In fact, Radford University was recently paid.

"The students whose money was temporary held up now have their funds," university spokeswoman Kathie Dickenson said.

Some universities are unaffected.

Virginia Tech students who get federal loans borrow directly from the government rather than through intermediaries such as Edamerica and Sallie Mae, a larger loan company.

"We don't count on private capital for the student loans, so we have no problems," said Barry Simmons, who directs Virginia Tech's office of university scholarships and financial aid. "All of our federal loan proceeds are being delivered timely [on time]."

Edamerica, a private company in Knoxville, Tenn., is one of a number of companies that arranges federally guaranteed loans, such as Stafford and PLUS loans, to students and their parents under the Federal Family Education Loan Program.

FFELP, which is separate from the federal government's direct student loan offerings, got into trouble after the collapse of the market for subprime mortgage-backed securities due to massive borrower defaults.

Why? Some of the same investors in those securities were investors in student loans, which had been packaged as investments in a similar way as mortgages.

After the investor cash dried up, the federal government offered new federal financial support to help get the FFELP program back on track in May. Funds resumed flowing in August.

But a backlog of loans to be funded is causing some delays, Bower said.

She said Edamerica survived the drying up of investor cash for student loans, while more than 100 other companies contracted or quit the business.

"We are going to make our disbursements. We're here and we're not going anywhere," she said.

Examples of held-up student loan proceeds abound.

Longwood University awaits $600,000, also late but now due Tuesday. Some 138 of its 4,700 students are affected, said Gayle Covington, Longwood's assistant director of financial aid.

To cope, the university is giving students access to interest-free credit lines and interest-free loans to ensure they can buy books, begin class and move in to student housing on time. The school year got off to its usual start, she said.

Still, the delays are an unusual development for the popular education-financing programs.

"This is the first time any of this has ever happened. It's all due to the economic issues that are going on everywhere," Covington said.