By
Ryan Gabrielson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
350 students didn't pay tuition after UA "took away the hammer," Likins says
When UA officials changed the registration process to help students who were unable to pay their entire tuition by the due date, they didn't think that several hundred students wouldn't pay.
"A very large number of students just didn't pay," University of Arizona President Peter Likins said at Friday's Arizona Board of Regents meeting.
About 350 full-time students didn't pay their tuition and were not dropped from their courses, many of whom are still taking their courses, said Richard Kroc, director of curricular and enrollment research.
By the twenty-first day of the semester, all three Arizona universities must present to the state their enrollment. The state then bases the funding the university receives on the number of students enrolled.
The fewer number of students officially enrolled in classes, the less money the UA receives, even if they're teaching the additional 350 students.
Once UA officials realized that these students hadn't paid, they began contacting them in an attempt to encourage payment.
"Our scrambling was not entirely successful," Likins said.
Only about 100 of the students paid the university their tuition. Under the old system, students would be automatically dropped from all their courses if their full tuition hadn't been paid by the due date.
Many of those students, who intended to pay, would have all their courses dropped and would have to begin rebuilding their schedule when school is about to begin, and it is much more difficult to get into classes, Kroc said.
In past years, about 50 students wouldn't pay tuition and would be dropped. UA officials estimated a slight increase, and during the trial run during the spring 2000 semester had about 100 students that didn't pay, Kroc said.
While there was an increase in the number of students who didn't pay and weren't drooped, Likins still decided to keep the program.
"We were trying to be student-friendly," Likins said. "We took away the hammer."
A university work group has been established to create a new policy to prevent this from happening in future semesters. The work group has two options in deciding on a new policy for the collection of registration fees, Kroc said.
The first is to increase late fees for students who don't pay by the due date, but they still will not be drooped from their courses.
The second alternative is to re-establish the policy of dropping students, but allow them more time before they are dropped.
While Kroc said he thinks that the old system of dropping students wasn't very effective, it was better at encouraging students to pay their tuition on time.
"We didn't think that (dropping students) worked very well," Kroc said. "But it was a policy that worked well in getting students to pay."
Peggy Ota, associate to the president, said the university hasn't been able to total how much money has been lost due to the policy change, since they haven't figured out if the students with outstanding tuition payments to the UA are out-of-state students or how much will be lost in state funding.
