Approximately 360 students benefited from a temporary policy allowing students with outstanding tuition balances to pre-register for spring classes, a University administrator said.
The plan, announced last fall to aid students' families in the difficult economic climate, allowed all students to sign up for courses this semester regardless of payment status, said Elizabeth Gentry, assistant vice president for financial and administrative services. Normally, students who owe more than $1,000 are blocked from pre-registering for classes in the following semester.
Additionally, about 40 students with outstanding balances of more than $5,000 were allowed to remain officially enrolled in the University despite rules that prohibit students with balances over that amount from living in residence halls or attending classes.
Ten more students, who were in danger of exceeding the temporary upper limit of $7,500 in unpaid dues, were also able to remain enrolled after working closely with financial aid officers to work out payment plans, said James Tilton, director of financial aid.
The loosened restrictions, announced in an Oct. 31 e-mail to the community from Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98, were created in an atmosphere of rising concern among administrators that the University might be facing a wave of families suddenly unable to make payments on tuition, Gentry said.
She emphasized that rapidly fluctuating economic circumstances and a lack of data make it difficult to plan even for the near future. Though there was great concern last semester, the numbers have so far been manageable, she said.
"Right now we're very comfortable with balances," she said. "We will have to look at it semester by semester."
Kertzer wrote in his e-mail last fall, "We recognize the economic difficulties that many of our students and their families are facing and want to do all that we can to be helpful in these challenging times."
"The good news is what was intended was achieved," he told The Herald last week.
Pre-registration for the fall 2009 semester will not occur until April, giving the University time to collect further data before announcing whether it will extend the temporary policies. "We don't have a good enough picture at this point," Gentry said. "The truth is we're not really seeing it yet."
