Some pay debts, can use PARIS

The number of currently-enrolled University students who face being blocked from using PARIS for not paying their debts to the University has dropped by 400 in the past week, University officials said yesterday. This leaves roughly 3,100 students who still owe over $1,000 from the current term, and will be placed on financial hold if they do not pay by October 15. Students on financial hold cannot register for the next academic term, order transcripts or receive degrees from the University. Associate Vice President for Finance Frank Claus said the number of students coming to the Franklin Building to pay off their bursar bills "has picked up" since Student Financial Services sent a warning notice to students in danger of being barred from using the Penn Automated Registration Information System. "We're busy, but we're not panicked yet," Claus said, adding that he expects the 3,100 figure to dwindle to 1,000 over the next month. The Financial Services office is implementing a new policy under which students must pay off the current semester – which was billed over the summer – before they will be allowed to register for the next semester. Several students, though, have complained they were not given adequate notice that they were in danger of being barred from registration. "I have never even gotten a note," Wharton sophomore Brian Jordan said. "I had to find out from The Daily Pennsylvanian." Jordan said he didn't even receive a bill over the summer and his most recent bill already had late charges tacked on. He said he called Financial Services, but the person he spoke to "started blaming me for not having paid my bill." "I never even got a bill," he said. And a Nursing freshman, who asked that her name not be used, said her only notification came in the form of a letter this week. "It was kind of a shock," she said. She said her balance was just over the $1,000 line that Financial Services is using this semester. Students whose debt is less than $1,000 will not be blocked from PARIS. Claus said enclosures have been sent with every student's bursar bill since the summer warning that if they did not pay their bill promptly, they risked being placed on financial hold. He said he understood how students might have mistaken the enclosures for junk mail and ignored them. That, he said, was why Financial Services sent letters last week to each of the students who risked being blocked – almost a month and a half before PARIS opens for spring term registration. After the October 15 deadline, Financial Services will send out another notice informing students who have still not paid their fall 1993 bill that they have been placed on financial hold, and must pay the bill or meet with Financial Services to work out a payment plan, Claus said. Claus said students who were billed over the summer should have paid by now. "When you get to September and October and you haven't paid a bill that was due in August," Claus said, "that's pretty serious." If someone went three months without making a mortgage payment, he said, "you wouldn't have a house."

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