OUR VIEW: Students should have been notified of purge
After re-checking their schedules and asking fellow classmates if they were in the right class, many students were surprised the first week of school to find their names missing from rolls after they had been dropped from their classes.
A Utah State University purging policy that automatically drops students who miss the tuition and fees deadline, caught many off guard and without any classes. 1,920 students were dropped after the initial purge on Aug. 17, including all students who had registered as far back as April, during priority registration. Students will be dropped every day if they register without paying the fees.
The idea behind this procedure is to eliminate students who register for more classes than they are planning to take, then decide – in the first week of classes – which ones to drop.
“Those who are able and willing to pay, should have priority in classes. The intent is to serve students who are serious about being students,” said Heidi Beck, associate registrar at USU. “We figure if they pay, they are serious.”
This idea, in theory, is helpful to responsible students who are prepared to pay on time for their classes. Many students were dropped in error. Ideally, those with financial aid would have a hold placed on their classes so they would not be purged, but some slipped through the system and were dropped.
By the time some students realized they had been dropped, it was too late to register for the same classes; classes they needed that semester for their majors. Higher-level classes in specific programs are competitive to get into, and are often only offered one semester per year. Being dropped from these can set students back semesters.
The Registrar’s Office will take necessary time to help those dropped from their classes by error get back into those classes, but only if it is the fault of the Cashiers or Financial Aid Offices, Beck said. Often, the classes have been filled and students who are not at fault are left with gaping holes in their schedules.
If a student simply forgot to pay, it is logical that they must pay the consequences and re-register for the few classes that are still available. But, if a student earned a scholarship or financial aid that should have paid for these fees, they have earned the right to the classes they initially registered for.
To prevent this costly and time-consuming error, students should have been notified. It would be much easier to send a simple group e-mail to students about their pending purge than to meet individually with devastated students after their schedules shattered.
The tuition and fees payment deadline dates are posted in both the general catalog and the schedule bulletin and announced as part of the SOAR program at USU, but this announcement alone does not prevent error.
Students put hours into planning their schedules and registering for classes they need. The least the administration can do is take a few minutes to send an e-mail and save the educational careers of responsible students.