Purge policy gives students incentive to pay tuition on time
Students procrastinating to pay for tuition may have more incentive to pull out their check books before the semester deadline with Utah State University’s new purge policy.
Interim Provost Noelle Cockett presented a new policy to members of the ASUSU Executive Council Tuesday that will essentially purge students from their registered classes if they do not pay their tuition before the required deadline.
The policy will go into effect spring semester 2006.
“While on the surface (the new policy) seems very unfriendly to students … from what we used to have, it’s much, much better,” Cockett said.
Each year the state requires each university to report an annual head count. From that number, USU is required to report a monetary figure from the tuition the university receives by the 15th day of the semester.
However, because of difficulties with the new Banner system conversion, 2,000 students were having problems registering for their classes fall semester, which reflected a lack in the enrollment numbers, Cockett said.
“It has been difficult in the past with out having a fixed policy,” said Glenn Davis of the registrar’s officer. “We found ourselves with Banner and there were some surprises and challenges.”
There was no set date in which the university applied the purge, which was causing problems, Cockett said.
Because of these problems, the purge was lifted during fall semester until a new policy could be made. With the new policy, there will be only one purge which will occur five working days before classes start each term.
A $50 tolerance will be set to prevent purging students for inconsequential amounts and students with unpaid balances will have a system hold until their balance is paid in full, according to the purge policy.
Exceptions to the purge will be handled by the Controller’s Officer and a TIP payment plan will be established for students who may have difficulty paying for all of their tuition costs before the semester begins.
Members of the provost office and university registrars and cashiers hope students will be more aware of this change by receiving two e-mail notices with balances due two weeks prior and three days prior to the fee-payment deadline/purge date. A hard-copy letter will be sent to first-time freshmen and transfer students two weeks to the fee-payment deadline, according to the policy.
In addition, an e-mail will also be sent to those student who have been purge, informing them again of payment options to re-enroll and consequences of having an outstanding balance, Cockett said.
“We think these incentives should make students willing to pay their tuition,” Cockett said.
-mmackay@cc.usu.edu