| February 12, 1999 |
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Calvin College Chimes
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Computer glitch adds up to $1,800 By Kathleen Minkner Students receive six tuition bills a year, and paying them can be difficult for some. Freshman Jeremy DeRoo, who pays for his own tuition, struggled to make his last payment because of an additional $1,800 charge had been added to his bill. DeRoo is but one example of an entire political science class that was not charged for the class but still received credit. The mistake occurred because of a computer mis-entry in the registrar’s office. The $1,800 had been added because he had not been charged for the class in the first semester billing statements. The students in the class were listed as part-time students, but they were in fact full-time. “All I knew that the original bill was less than I expected, but I assumed that [Financial Services] knew what they were doing,” stated DeRoo. “I was upset because all of the sudden I had to come up with a lot of money.” In actuality, DeRoo, an Ontario native, has to pay more than $1,800 because his savings are in Canadian currency and are affected by the low exchange rate. Before he was told to pay the extra $1,800, DeRoo decided to work less and join the basketball team. Because he is now being forced to use his savings set aside for next year, he is considering transferring from Calvin. DeRoo insists that the incident has not affected his view of Calivn. “I love it here, I just don’t like the financial services office. Through the whole thing they just acted like they didn’t really care,” he said. “They basically said ‘It’s your fault. You should have known better and expected to pay the whole price.’ There was no apology or anything.” Assistant Controller of Financial Services Tim Burghuis, stated that he regretted that DeRoo walked away with a negative perception. Financial Services acknowledged the mistake and admitted that an apology or explanation would have been appropriate. However, they still think that DeRoo should pay the actual cost. “We try to be accommodating to the students. We’re not asking him to do more than he was prepared to do,” stated Burghuis. “If he would have looked at his statement, he would have seen that it was incorrect.” The problem originated in the registrar’s office when the totaled credit hours did not match what the students were charged. The mistake is believed to have affected only a handful of people; those enrolled in the political science class. Students were not charged for theclass first semester. The problem was not discovered at Financial Services until Nov. 17 when a student questioned their bill. Burghuis noticed that the student was listed as part-time, when they were actually full- time. The students involved did not learn of the problem until they received their Dec. 16 tuition bills. Financial Services Controller Todd Lohman, who has been at Calvin for 10 years, stated that mistakes like these donít happen very often. “It is helpful if a student looks over their bill, because they have the opportunity to review it,” he said. DeRoo disagreed.“I don't think that students check every little thing on their statements -- they shouldn't have to,” he stated. “Because of this, I donít think they should make me pay. You canít just add money [to the bill].” Burghuis thinks that money is a touchy subject in general, especially among college students. “We did give the students involved the option of making the payments over the rest of the semester ... they donít have to pay it all at once,” he stated. Lohman emphasized that although Financial Services relies on many different departments, they have no authority over right and wrong. He also added that though mistakes like this are minimal, something is being done about it. “It should be discussed and maybe a policy for errors like this can be put into effect,” he stated. Burghuis added that Financial Services has created a process of double-checking the registrarís office and making sure that the numbers are correct. “We are reacting to the situation by communicating with the [registrar's] office and manually double-checking numbers to make sure that problems like these never happen again,” he stated. |