Bursar institutes new fee policy

Those who want to adjust their course schedule may have to pay a little more. The IU Bursar office announced Friday that changing sections of a class will cost twice as much.\nThe modification was declared via mass e-mail and will go into effect next Fall.\nPreviously, dropping and adding a different section from the same class only cost students one $22 fee. Under the new system, when a student processes a section change within the same course after the second week of classes, the student will be assessed two $22 dollar fees, one for dropping and one for adding.\nSophomore Alex Nguyen said the new policy is unfair.\n"If they're going to do $22 for the drop and $22 for the add, that's outrageous," Nguyen said. "I just want to know why they raised it."\nBut Associate Bursar Kimberly Kercheval said overall, the new policy can make registration cheaper for students.\nAccording to the e-mail, undergraduate students taking between 12 and 17 credit hours who adjust their schedules but remain in the "flat fee range" will not incur any change in tuition assessment if the drop and add occur on the same calendar day. So any undergraduate student who drops and adds classes on the same day and is enrolled in 12 to 17 hours before and after the drop/add will only be assessed the $44 drop and add fee.\nJunior Joe Davis said the protection for students in the flat fee range doesn't make sense.\n"If a kid wants to drop a class they should give them a little more time to do it," Davis said. "They should at least give students time to talk it over with their adviser instead of taking a class they're not sure about."\nOne additional policy change announced Friday related to students not included in the flat-fee range. Such a student who drops hours after the first week, according to the new policy, will receive a partial refund corresponding to the magnitude of their tardiness. Any unprotected student will be refunded 75 percent of the tuition during the second week, 50 percent during the third, 25 percent during the fourth and none thereafter.\nKercheval said the changes were installed due to the schematic of the Student Information System, the University's new PeopleSoft integration software, but remained confident the new system can be effective.\n"It is our hope that, with advanced warning, students will be able to successfully plan their enrollment for the fall semester and minimize the possibility of being assessed late-program change fees or of losing tuition dollars on an even course exchange occurring outside the flat fee," Kercheval said.\nJunior Adam Carroll said policy changes of any sort are a nuisance.\n"I want to know why they're instituting so many new policies," Carroll said. "I'm graduating in a year and I still have to deal with this. It seems like every year they keep adding money to my bills, and I'm a college student, and I can't really afford it."\n-- Contact staff writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.