New installment plan promises flexibility, possible late fees

This semester was the first in which college administration was given the freedom - via a recently amended House Bill - to choose due dates for each tuition payment, and it was also the first semester in which the installment plan's $10 startup fee was eliminated.

Elimination of the $10 setup fee is meant to benefit students, but the added payment in the installment plan would benefit the college's budget, because it would "create the opportunity for more people to be late with that additional payment," Neil Vickers, the college's associate vice president of finance and budget said.

Students are assessed a $20 late fee each time they fail to pay an installment on time.

In a memo presented to the board of trustees in September of 2008, the college's Vice President of Business Services Ben Ferrell wrote, "Elimination of $10 setup fee will result in a loss of revenue of about $80,000, but this likely will be mostly offset by an increase in late payment fees generated by the addition of one payment to the installment plan. Net budget impact will be minimal."

The college's tuition installment plan is set up so that students don't have to pay their entire tuition up front prior to attending classes. Rather, it allows a student's tuition bill to be split up into payments throughout the semester.

Before the amendment of House Bill 2974, students were required to pay one-half of their tuition on or before the semester's first day. The second payment was to be made in the amount of one-quarter of a student's total bill and was required to be paid prior to the start of the sixth class week. The section also required that the last one-quarter payment be made before the beginning of the eleventh class week.

However, the Bill was amended in the 80th Legislature, providing Administrators with more freedom as to how much of a student's tuition was due, and the dates each payment would be due.

"Prior to this last semester, the state decided the dates," said Vickers.

With the added freedom, Vickers said, the administration chose to eliminate the installment plan's initial $10 set-up fee and to split the payments into four equal payments instead of the plan's previous three.

As of now, payments are due on Fridays, just before the 15th of the month by 5 p.m. at the cashier's office. Payments can not be made online.

"In previous semesters, about 1,000 to 1,500 students' paid late fees," said Vickers. resulting in revenue for the college of $30,000 to $40,000 per semester.

"We're hopeful that people aren't late, but the fact of the matter is, people are late," he said.

When asked how Administrators chose the due dates, which are just days before most students' get their bi-monthly paychecks, Vickers said administrators decided the dates according to the academic calendar.

"It's not a tactic," Vickers said. "We broke them into one-month payments."

He added that the administration has not seen an increase in late-fee revenue with the new due dates.

"They haven't gone up," he said. "So far, we haven't seen that more people are being later than usual."

Cypress Creek Interpreting Major Renee Oakley-Smith said she didn't even notice that installment plan policies were different this semester. "I just paid everything when it was due."