Beginning this fall, Palomar College students will have 10 days to pay their enrollment fees or lose their place in class, a policy the college adopted after trying to collect on thousands of student accounts that remained unpaid for years, officials said.
"From the moment they initiate a request for classes ... they will have 10 days from that point to pay their fees," said Herman Lee, Palomar's director of enrollment services. "On the 11th day, if there's still a balance due, the computer will automatically drop them from the classes. They will have to re-enroll if they want them."
When the registration system drops students, it will also automatically fill those spots with students from a waiting list, meaning that students who don't pay their fees on time risk losing their chance to re-enroll as well, Lee said.
Students who fill the slots will receive e-mail notifications and also have 10 days to pay.
The new policy is expected to increase fee revenues in a time of budget cuts, Lee said. The campus lost $3.5 million in state funding in the 2009/2010 fiscal year, resulting in fewer class sessions. The college has turned to the California State Franchise Tax Board to collect past-due fees, but campus officials were unable Friday to provide the total amount of uncollected fees they're seeking.
Several students said Friday that the new fee policy is ill-timed, during an economic downturn when they're already hard-pressed to cover living expenses, find part-time work and pay for school.
"The job market is very bad, housing's going up and (colleges) should be the last thing to do something like this," said history student Alexis Ramirez, 23, of Fallbrook.
Policy too strict, students say
Students said they were already seeing the effects of the policy.
Yalda Sidiqi, 18, of San Marcos, said she was unable to enroll this semester because of previous unpaid fees.
"I went to sign up for fall classes, but they said, 'You haven't paid the fees for summer,'" she said, adding that she had been communicating with the financial aid office to cover the funds.
In the past, Gropen said, students were allowed to register for classes even with outstanding balances from previous semesters.
"We had students who had not paid all their fees, or may have paid a portion of fees, and were enrolled again," she said.
Under the new policy, all fees ---- past or current ---- will be due within 10 days of enrollment.
Lee said that while the fee payment deadline is new to Palomar, similar policies are common to other area colleges. He said the new policy will benefit students who may have faced extra fees and failing grades for classes they had not attended but had not officially dropped.
In the past, he said, the college relied on students to drop unwanted classes or instructors to clear students who did not attend class from their class rolls, but said that process was not reliable.
"We should have done this a long time ago, because every community college that I know of ... has some kind of drop process for nonpayment of fees," he said.
MiraCosta College college allows a 48-hour grace period for students to pay enrollment fees, said Jo Ferris, director of cashiering services. After 24 hours, students receive phone calls and e-mails reminding them to pay, and they are dropped from the class if they have not paid within 48 hours, she said. Students added to classes from waiting lists also have 48 hours to pay, she said.
Years of unpaid fees
Palomar's new policy comes after years of efforts to collect unpaid enrollment fees, officials said. Although the college held students responsible for their fees, it did not require them to pay at the time of enrollment, said spokeswoman Laura Gropen.
When accounts remained past due, sometimes years after students had left the college, officials relied on collection agencies to secure payment, she said. That proved ineffective, however, she said, and in 2006 the college began submitting outstanding accounts to the California Franchise Tax Board, which withholds the original amount plus additional fees, said Bob Baird, manager of fiscal services.
Last year (2008/2009), the college sent the names of 13,419 former or current students to the tax board for collection, Gropen said, and sent similar numbers in each previous year since 2006.
That collection came as an unpleasant surprise to Anastasia Benzel, a former Palomar College student who learned, nine years after transferring, that the tax board was holding her tax return to pay $1,100 in past due fees from her four semesters at the college.
She said she received no prior notice of the debt, although she had applied for transcripts in 2001 and 2003, and provided updated contact information at the time. Benzel said she had paid her fees while enrolled, but said she no longer has the records to prove it.
"My big concern is that this debt that they claim I owe is nearly 10 years old now, so I have no way of proving to them that I paid it, or that my parents paid it," said Benzel, 32, of Long Beach.
Gropen said the college does not send bills reminding students of their debts, adding that she did not know whether the college had current addresses for Benzel.
Benzel said she questions whether a 10-day payment period allows enough time for students to come up with money for classes, but said it's an improvement over the nearly decade-old debt she encountered.
"I think it's better to collect up front than come after us a decade later," she said. "At least 'up-front' people have records of what they have and haven't paid."
Lee said course rosters will fluctuate while students adjust to the new system, but said it would reduce past-due collections and help maintain accurate class rolls.
"I think that once students find out there is a defined payment period, they'll pay on time," he said. "I think that by the time spring comes around, we'll have a lot of the kinks ironed out."
Call staff writer Deborah Sullivan Brennan at 760-740-5420.
