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New rule forces students to pay tuition or have classes dropped
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Monday August 20, 2001 |
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Bursar's office has set Sept. 4 deadline for tuition payment
The University of Arizona Bursar's office is warning UA students to either pay their tuition or face cancellation of their classes.
A new UA policy states that students who fail to pay tuition by Sept. 4 will have their classes dropped. The rule is a change from last year, when nonpaying students were allowed to remain enrolled in classes despite outstanding bills.
Lucia Baur-Zegarsky, an administrative assistant in the bursar's office, said university officials wanted to crack down on students who failed to pay last year. The only way to ensure that tuition money will be paid, she said, is to threaten students with class cancellation.
"We're reinstating cancellation, but we don't want anybody to get cancelled," she said. "It's really important (that students pay). We don't want to charge late fees or, worse yet, cancel any classes."
Baur-Zegarsky said last year's policy of inundating nonpaying students with late fees rather than class cancellation failed to work as effectively as UA officials had hoped.
"None of the people paid for their classes last year," she said. "(The number of students with outstanding tuition bills) was larger than usual because we weren't dropping students."
Associated Students President Ray Quintero said Thursday that students yet to pay should take the university's threat to drop classes seriously.
"A lot of students say, 'Sure, they're going to drop my classes,' but don't actually see the university going through with it," he said.
Quintero, who said ASUA officials are scheduled to address the issue of forced class cancellation at their next meeting, thinks most students who have yet to pay tuition are those waiting for financial aid.
"(Students) need to know the financial aid office offers temporary loans," he said. "The university generally tries to help out the students."
In addition, as of today, students wishing to withdraw completely from school must now pay 50 percent of tuition costs, whether they've attended classes or not.
"People who are not going to be attending need to get their classes dropped now," Baur-Zegarsky said. "They keep students who want to get into classes out of the classes they want. If you're not going to take classes, drop them for someone else."
Quintero, who said he's never been late on a tuition payment, agreed.
"There could be students trying to get into those classes," he said. "And they're not getting in because somebody hasn't paid."
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