PASSHE refund policy amended
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) will be instituting a new refund policy for the 14 schools in the system, starting in the Fall 2009 semester.
According to KU Bursar Wendy Pursell, the new policy will have two components. The first allows students to receive a 100 percent reduction of charges if their courses are dropped during the first six calendar days of a regular semester or the first two days of a summer session. After that, students will be required to make full payment for the courses. Withdrawal from a summer session will also fall under this component, unless the student completely withdraws from the university as well.
The second component deals with withdrawal from the university and leaves of absence. The largest difference will be that under the new policy, any student that withdraws from the university within the first six calendar days of the semester will receive a 100 percent reduction of charges. Under the current system, students can only receive a complete refund prior to the first two full days of classes, after which the students are required to pay 10 percent of their bill, with an increasing amount for withdrawing later in the semester. The new policy retains this feature as well, with students unable to receive a refund for withdrawal after the fifth week of classes.
According to Pursell, this PASSHE-wide policy change was authored using feedback from students throughout the system. Pursell feels that the greatest advantage of the new policy is that “most students should be able to attend at least one course session to determine if they want to keep it.” However, she expressed concern over its all-or-nothing component.
Pursell says that the individuals that will be most affected by this new policy are part-time students and students that go below full-time during the semester. After the first six calendar days, these students will receive no refund for their dropped courses.
Pursell also commented on the possible confusion the policy name could cause. Pursell defined the refund as a reduction of charges, not a refund of money already paid, stating that “even if a student pays $500 before withdrawing, they may still owe money to the university.” She clarified this saying if a student had not paid any money toward his or her semester before withdrawing after the drop period, the student would be assessed the appropriately tiered reduction of charges, for example 80 percent, which would mean the student is still responsible to pay a percentage of his or her bill, in this case 20 percent. If the tuition had already been paid in full, this reduction in charges would result in a refund of 80 percent
In addition, the Instructional Technologies fee will be non-refundable.
Pursell says she will be adding an FAQ section to the KU Web site regarding this issue within a week.
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