Traditional and hybrid biomedical sciences students were hit with a $700 bill last month because the university waived a fee it should not have, UTRGV officials say.
In Fall 2016, UTRGV Student Accounting Services applied a $350 waiver by mistake to all biomedical sciences students, including hybrid and traditional. They are being charged an additional $350 for the Spring 2017 semester, for a total bill of $700, said Patrick Gonzales, associate vice president for University Marketing and Communications.
However, Saraswathy Nair, a UTRGV associate professor and chair of the Health and Biomedical Sciences Department, said at least one student was affected in the Fall 2015 semester.
“What eventually happened at student accounting, or student billing, is that starting in Fall 2015, they put a mistaken credit for the biomedical program fee for, I believe, all students, whether they were traditional or hybrid,” Nair said.
Student Accounting Services is reviewing the accounting error to prevent the situation from happening again, Gonzales said.
“It was our mistake. We are not hiding that. It was a billing coding issue … and we apologize to all the students,” Gonzales said. “But, it is still something that we need to correct and we are working with the students to correct it as soon as possible and we are looking into re-evaluating the process to make sure this type of thing does not happen again.”
Asked how the mistake occurred, Gonzales replied: “We are still trying to find out. It had something to do with the coding. Everything is done through our computer system and somehow we got the wrong coding that sent the credit to students who were not supposed to receive it.”
Currently, 329 biomedical students are being charged the fee. Of these, 105 are traditional students and 224 are hybrid.
Student Accounting Services did not catch the error until Jan. 10, Nair said.
“So, then on that day, I believe [Student Accounting] went back in their accounting system and everywhere they put a minus $350, they had to correct it,” Nair said. “But, the problem was [that] all these past semesters, financial aid had paid [student] bills, so now they had underpaid [the fee]. So, now, that balance is showing up. So, it is not that they are mistakenly charged the biomedical program fee, the mistake was that they were mistakenly given a credit for the biomedical program fee. It is an accounting error.”
Nair said students who are not able to pay the fee need to schedule an appointment at the university Bursar’s Office.
Asked if UTRGV will consider forgiving the fee for students, Gonzales replied: “It was not a policy change. It was a mistake from billing and coding. We will correct that.”
Nair said: “If you cannot pay by Fall [2017], please tell [the Bursar’s Office]. What I am asking everybody to do is go to Student Accounting and ask for the detail [of the accounting] line by line so you understand the bill. … Then, go [to] the Bursar’s Office and come with a payment plan and tell them if you cannot make it by [the] fall semester.”
Gonzales said the university will not generate money from the mistake.
“Students were credited $350 of the fee and so, their tuition that they paid that year was $350 less than what they used to pay. So, we are trying to get that $350 back,” he said. “The university is not making any money on this.”
On Jan. 20, The Rider received an anonymous call from a traditional biomedical sciences student complaining about the mistake.
“The issue is that student billing accidentally gave a waiver of $350 to the traditional students and now they are asking for the students to pay back that $350 that was taken out of the tuition,” the student said.
The student said students who do not pay for the fee will be blocked from their classes. The deadline for students to pay the fee is Fall 2017.
Students should not be dropped from classes at any point of this semester, Nair said.
“What I know from the administration is that this semester, nobody is going to be dropped for a nonpayment of this [fee]. If anybody is dropped by a mistake in this semester, students know they have to contact me,” she said.
UTRGV College of Health Affairs Dean Michael Lehker said the accounting error has nothing to do with the biomedical program fee which traditional students have previously claimed the university was charging them.
“No one was charged the [biomedical] fee that was a traditional student,” Lehker said. “So, however, what did happen as far as I can discern … [is] the way it was applied to hybrid students was to give them a credit of $350 and then charge them $350 so they would pay $0. So, for most of the traditional students, only the credit appeared but not the charge. So, they underpaid their tuition of $350. … But, again, that really has nothing to do with the student fee for the program fee itself. It was really that [students] have mistakenly received a credit from the university.”
Hybrid biomedical sciences sophomore Claudia Gonzalez said she does not know why the university is charging $700 a year.
“I do not know why they are charging us in the first place,” she said.
Gonzales said the university is not asking for random money from students.
“We are not charging people just to charge people,” he said. “We are trying to get back the mistaken credit that we gave to students. … I think some of the students are confused because they think we are just asking for a random $350 [per semester], and that is not the case.”
