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| CSULB Tuition Payment Options To Change | |||||||
| Due to increasing costs to the university and California's budget crisis, students will no longer be able to enjoy the convenience of paying tuition with a credit card with no extra transaction fee. | |||||||
| The new system, which will implement several different payment options, is to be integrated into My.CSULB for use starting June 1. The three new options to pay tuition include using a debit card in person, paying on the Internet with an "e-check," or paying through a third party credit card vendor called SmartPay, which will require students to pay a 2.9-percent convenience fee, which comes to approximately $35. | |||||||
| Until now, the university had been bearing the brunt of the transaction fee, but when more and more students began paying with credit cards, the charge skyrocketed. | |||||||
| Joe Latter, CSULB's associate vice president of Financial Management, spoke to the Associated Students Senate last month, and explained why the university came to the decision to change tuition payment options. "Ten years ago only 15 percent of students [paid for tuition with credit cards]; now that statistic is up to 65 percent of students," Latter said at last month's meeting. According to Latter, when the system first started, the "cost to the campus was approximately $100,000," but ";is expected to exceed $800,000 in the next year." | |||||||
| Eleven campuses in the CSU-system, including San Luis Obispo and San Diego, have been using SmartPay for several years and have experienced relatively no problems. Latter told the Senate that the system would be checked extensively for security loopholes and privacy safety, and believes the system will be safe to use. | |||||||
| Guido Piotti, vice president of Associated Students, Inc., believes that the new system is necessary and that the university is trying to protect students "best interests." "Of course I don't support anything that would inconvenience students by any means," Piotti said, "but this is a matter that is 100-percent out of our hands and the university has made this decision because of the massive budget cuts we are facing." | |||||||
| Piotti, who is also the chair of the Senate, said that while the Senate did not seem to be happy about the decision, the consensus was that if it was necessary to go ahead and do it. "[The Senate] seemed to be more concerned with keeping classes than cutting them," Piotti said, alluding to the worry that if the university had to continue paying the extra fee from credit card transactions, classes would be pulled. Piotti noted that talks with the administration would continue and he hopes that when the budget crisis is over, this system can be "overturned." | |||||||
| Latter, a month after his presentation to the Senate, still stands by the decision the university made to change the payment options and believes the effects will be minimal for the fall semester. "This year, most students will have had the opportunity to pay under the old system by June 1, so the impact will mostly only affect new students." | |||||||
| Latter also clarified that the system will now allow the university to focus even more on students, and said that the money the university will save "will be put back into student services [such as cashiering, enrollment, and counseling] as well as classes." Latter assured that the 2.9% convenience charge was the lowest the university could get. | |||||||
| It is important to note that Housing and Parking Services will be subject to the new payment options but Forty-Niner Shops, Inc., will continue to use the old system which does allow for payment by credit card. | |||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2004, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | |||||||
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