Re: Greek Charges on Student Accounts

Tom,

UNI was allowing student groups and fraternities to use the student
billing system until around 1987 (I came here in 1988). I was told the
practice had been discontinued after UNI was sued by the parent of a
student whose registration was blocked by a balance due stemming from
charges submitted by a campus fraternity. UNI was not aware the student
had disputed the charges with the fraternity and, in fact, they were
questionable. As part of the settlement, and per the opinion of
University legal counsel, this practice was discontinued at that time.

We're asked every 4-5 years (as the student population turns over) to
reconsider our policy, but last I checked our legal counsel remained
concerned we would become subject to laws governing third party
collectors that we are not otherwise subject to, and that we expose
ourselves unnecessarily to civil liabilities. Also, the section of the
Iowa Administrative Code that authorizes us to withhold records and
registration does clearly state that it must be for obligations owed to
the State (or a State entity), or for funds the State (or it's entity)
legally administers (Perkins Loans, for example). We believe Greek
charges do not fall into either of these categories.

Brian

Brian T. Looby
Bursar
University of Northern Iowa

Tom Schmidt wrote:

> I have a question that I don't remember seeing on these lists since I joined them, so hopefully it is a new one. Someone in our administration is pushing to have greek system housing charges put onto the universities student bill, having us bill and collect these charges for the greek system. What I have been asked to do is find out if there are any other schools out there who are doing this now. If your school does put these charges on your student account (or did before), can you give me some information on it (see below). If you aren't doing it and never have but had been asked to do it, could you let me know what the reasons were for not going ahead with putting those charges on the student account?
>
>1. If you are doing it now, were there any difficulties in setting this up?
>
>2. Has has it been working for you? Have they been paying on time?
>
>3. If any of them fail to pay this bill, how do you handle that balance? Is it handled any differently than other charges that are past due? What happens if you have to write those charges off?
>
>4. Have you noticed any positive or negative feed back from the university community as a whole?
>
>5. If you did this but have stopped, what were the reasons you stopped billing those charges?
>
>
>Thank you in advance for those who are able to respond.
>
>Tom Schmidt
>Associate Director
>University of Minnesota
>Office of Student Finance
>20 Fraser Hall
>106 Pleasant St. SE
>Minneapolis, MN 55455
>Ph: 612/625-1082
>Fax: 612/626-9160 (M-F, 8 to 4)
> 612/624-2873 (24/7)
>E-Mail: t-schm@umn.edu
>
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Received on Thu Jun 30 09:14:12 2005