Late Fee Letter Stresses Students

By THE OBSERVER EDITORIAL BOARD
July 16, 2011

Published: August 25, 2010

Back-to-school time is often a frenzy. With the stresses of having to move, begin classes and say goodbye to summer, the start of the fall semester can be chaotic even without the pressure of college payments. But as Christina Frasca’s article, “Enrollment Services Letter Alarms Students with Outstanding Balances” on page one states, tensions were running especially high for some students after they received letters informing them that if they couldn’t pay off their debts to the University by Aug. 20, they would be charged a late fee and possibly removed from their classes. With only a few days to settle their dues, this task was daunting for those who were still waiting on loans to be processed or for incorrect bills to be amended.

One of the things Fordham students appreciate the most about our university is that, in many ways, it feels like a family. Unlike some other, less caring schools, this one normally treats its students as more than nameless customers. In past years, students struggling to make necessary payments could expect to be met with a certain level of cooperation from Enrollment Services on an individual, case-by-case basis. Although the Financial Aid staff has been patient and supportive during this chaotic time, the written warning that led students to seek their assistance was anything but understanding, as it assumed that all students were fully at fault for their unpaid dues.

The fact is that we, the students, are not just customers. Fordham is where we come to learn, to grow and, for some of us, to live. We care about our university, but the Fordham experience is a very expensive, albeit beloved, one. Especially in these hard economic times, difficult financial circumstances can arise that are beyond students’ control. It is one thing to enforce consequences for people who are chronic non-payers; it is another to incite panic in students who may just need an extra week for that loan or correct bill to come through.

Start-of-the-year financial aid struggles are nothing new for Fordham students. In fact, the front page headline of last year’s back-to-school issue, published Aug. 27, 2009, stated, “Some Students Still Without Financial Aid One Week Before Classes Begin.” However, what is new this year is the harshness with which students were met if even a small portion of their bill was left unpaid after the mid-August deadline. We understand that Fordham has a right to enforce timely payment, but super-short-term ultimatums and scare tactics are not behaviors we have ever expected from our university. We can usually depend on the standards of individual attention and “cura personalis”—care for the whole person—that our Jesuit school upholds. Fortunately, some students have found this kind of assistance at the end of the long lines at Enrollment Services. Although the dust from this clamor will likely clear soon, perhaps it will serve as a lesson that, even in times of tight university budgeting, there’s more to the whole person than his or her personal finances.