Believe It or Bite Me: "Free" is not the same as "Give us 400 dollars."

Re: Since when is “Free” spelled “Give me 400 dollars?”

Dear Bursar’s Office, ______ University,

I like to think that I have a reasonably sound grasp of the English language, having spoken it for over twenty years now. I’ve won speechwriting competitions. I write contracts for a living at this very university. I have a degree from a very highly regarded university in writing, which, you’ll be surprised to note, required excellent reading comprehension skills in addition to being able to make squiggly marks on paper. My apartment is filled with books (full of words, not pictures), which I read, merely for the pleasure of it, a concept that I know must seem very odd to you. If you are wondering how I accomplish this amazing feat, I assure you that it is much easier to procure adequate reading lights when your head is not STUCK UP YOUR ASS.

So when I tell you that “free” is not the same as “give me four hundred dollars,” be assured that I know whereof I speak.

In case you are wondering, yes, I did get your notification that you had cancelled my Spring 04 classes today. I realize that your office must be very busy at this time of year, what with all that poo to be thrown at the walls. But I must say that I expected even troglodytes like yourselves were familiar with the concept of “Free.” “Free” means that there will be no charge. “Give me 400 dollars” on the other hand, is slightly different.

See if you can sound it out. I’ll wait.

“Give me 400 dollars,” in addition to sounding nothing like the word “Free” is, actually, NOT FUCKING FREE AT ALL. So when you say that employees can work on a degree for “free,” but actually you charge them per credit hour every semester, what you mean to say is that you are mendacious, bottom-feeding lackwits who enjoy taking revenge for your own shitty positions in life by crapping all over employees who are trying to enrich themselves. What you mean to say is that you and the administration find it ever so much easier to impose bogus fees than to just raise tuition. What you mean to say is that, in addition to the hiring freeze, the lack of cost of living or merit increases for the past two years, and the wonderful feeling that one gets from coming to work each day wondering if today’s the day some disgruntled octogenarian secretary who got laid off comes back with an uzi, and due to glaucoma is unable to recognize me as the one who always turned her Lean Cuisine for her, instead mistaking me for someone LIKE YOU, in addition to all that, if an employee tries to get some benefit out of working for a university by taking advantage of the education the university offers as part of its benefits package, you are effectively GIVING THEM A PAYCUT.

I’ve checked with other schools in our system, and nobody else charges these fucking grotesque fees, not even the lead institution.

Since the teller windows that trap you in your office also prevent me from springing across the counter to throttle you, let me suggest that perhaps those bullet-proof protections would be unnecessary if you gave students some notice before irrevocably fucking up their entire semester. For instance, when you impose a deadline for getting four hundred dollars from a student, but tell them everything is free, the student might appreciate knowing in advance when she’s about to be thrown out of a free class for non-payment of a fee that was never billed to her. A simple shout of “Bend Over” would suffice.

Very Sincerely (Hoping) Yours (Shrivels Up and Falls Off),

Jenny Haniver

Wow Jenny, that really sucks!

As a staff member I also take advantage of my university’s offer of “free” tuition, but really it’s $3.00 for 6 units or two classes (8 units), whichever is greater. Sounds like there’s a problem in your HR department if you got billed for your registration, and they’re supposed to at least warn you before dropping your classes!

That happened to me one time where my application (I have to send a form every quarter) didn’t get entered in the computer in time before the bills were sent out and I got billed for full-time fees, but I caught it and got it straightened out before they actually dropped me. Another time, I registered for a class but later dropped it and added a different one. For some reason the computer showed me as taking three classes, even though I dropped that one, and charged me almost $500 for part-time fees. Point being, people and computers make mistakes, and you have to do some ball-busting to set things right!

If I were you I would go down to the office of whoever handles the employee fee-waiver program and raise some major hell. Find out what went wrong and hold those bastards accountable. Then demand that your classes be re-instated, and if they’re already full after dropping you, demand that you be given an override. You shouldn’t have to suffer for their mistake.

Last thought: if, in fact, there was some kind of misunderstanding, and there really is no such thing as “free” tuition for employees at your university, and you really do owe them $400 if you wish to take classes, go down the the program director’s office and just fucking blast him/her for misleading the campus community about educational opportunities available to the people who are the backbone of the system. Add that you have lost all faith in the campus administration and that the higher-ups obviously don’t care about developing their employees or providing them the chance to better themselves and realize their educational goals. Point out that had the campus allowed free tuition for employees, maybe they wouldn’t have hired a binch of friggin’ idiots who caused this fuck-up in the first place…etc.

Sorry you’re going through this. I hope you’re able to get your Spring classes back.

Yamirskoonir

Sorry, there was a typo, what we meant to say was "Employees can work on a degree for fee.

Thanks, Yamirskoonir,

I’ve been on the phone half the morning, and here’s what I’ve found out:

-My tuition remission has been applied. Tuition is $1,200. The $400 that’s left is “University Fees,” which are mandatory even for employees, and which almost no other university in our State system charges, including the main campus.

-Full-time students do get warned when they are about to be dropped from their classes, employees don’t.

-If I don’t take any classes during this, my first semester as a student, I have to re-apply to the Admissions office to sign up in the Fall semester.

-There is no one in the Bursar’s office who’s responsible for people like me, and everyone’s really tired of talking to us idiots who expect that free things are free. This I have had explained to me between world weary sighs by numerous people in the Bursar’s office as they shuttle me around and laugh. Gee, I’m really fucking sorry that’s it’s such a problem for you to pick up the phone and do your damn job! Poor widdle Bursar’s office!

Last but not least, a large part of the my anger is due to the fact that even if I managed to get my spot in my classes back, I don’t have the money right now to pay these fees, which I didn’t know about until yesterday at 4:45pm, when the Bursar sent me this email saying they’d dropped me, and promptly closed the office for the day.

Right now I’m talking to financial aid about working out a payment plan in case I manage to get back in the classes, which has been the source of new embarrassment, because those assholes don’t understand how anybody could need a payment plan for a measly four hundred smackers. To coin a phrase: Life sucks, and then you stand in line at financial aid.
(I need a hug.)

Sorry to hear that, Jenny, but it’s a pretty standard arrangement in my experience. Most employers that have tuition remission programs only reimburse for tuition, not fees. I work at a University, and although I couldn’t take classes here (it’s mostly a professional school), they do have a tuition remission program for employees, and even they don’t pay fees, only tuition. There’s an awful lot included in fees, usually, like access to computer labs, libraries, and other facilities, things you’d think would be included in tuition - after all, if you can’t use these things it wouldn’t be much of an education, would it? - but they’re not.

((Jenny))

Here’s a hug. Not that it will help. I’m so sympathetic. When you’re foolish enough to work for a university while you’re hoping to continue your education, you get bitten in the butt every which way. You don’t make enough money to pay for what tuition/fees are charged, and you don’t get the benefits that you would get as a student. Totally sucks.

My university charges us full tuition, but we get a fee waiver. Cuts it down some, but not as much as I’d like. The system here also recently raised tuition rates, and it irritated the crap out of me every time I’d hear some just-out-of-high-schooler moaning about having to pay a few extra dollars in tuition “because it’s just going to go in the paychecks of the employees.” Hello, I haven’t had a raise in several years. I’m supposed to get a 2% raise now, which will not even cover the increased tuition I had to pay. :mad:

I hope you’re able to get everything worked out to get into your spring classes!!

They said tuition was free. Surely you’re not ignorant enough of how colleges work to think that means everything is free. Most schools have drawn a distinction between tuition and fees for a long time now- tuition is the per-credit-hour fee you pay to take the class. Fees are the charges to pay for the water, lights, computer equipment, etc… that aren’t always dependent on the number of hours you take.

Free tuition is still a hell of a deal. I’d happily take a 60% decrease in my total school costs this year, even if I still had to pay the remaining 1000 bucks. Quit whining that they didn’t hand it to you on a platter, and take advantage of this terrific opportunity! Everyone else has to pay a LOT more.

I understand what you’re getting at, cuauh, but I already have access to the computer labs and libraries. I’m not using student parking, student housing, advising, mentoring, tutoring, shuttle service or basically any of the services provided to students that aren’t already provided to staff as well. (In fact, I don’t think I’m allowed to). Books are bought separately. What are these fees for? If it’s meant to cover the time that the staff have to spend registering me, they’re getting paid about four hundred dollars a minute.

Sigh. I know that, Bump. Don’t think I’m being deterred from taking classes, I just don’t know if I’ll get to do it this semester or not, and it’s really frustrating. But the real thing that burns my ass is that it’s usually customary to send people a BILL for monies you’d like to collect. That didn’t happen - I’ve been checking my online student account every day, and it said everything was fine until yesterday, when I got this email and logged in to find all my classes dropped and closed.

Arounf here, they call it the “Big Orange Screw”., and it applies to everyone at UT except the Deans and up.

Excellent thread title. (I also enjoyed the memo and will probably use the closing sometime in the future)

$400? That was my first book bill in college. The professors should have been paying me to read their dreck. :slight_smile:

They didn’t send you a bill or anything? Seems to me you could go raise a bunch of hell in the Bursar’s office about that. Maybe there’s some kind of snafu- they had some loan things like that around here(UT-Dallas) where the system showed people as unpaid, but the lenders hadn’t disbursed the cash yet. Seems fairly typical of state schools to have people of questionable competence working in the administrative offices.

Jenny, you must work at one of the Cal State Universities. Everyone knows California is broke. :wink:

Just kidding (not about California, just about where you work).

Many years ago (early 70’s) I worked at a college in the IT department and Tuition was free, really free. There were fees, I think US $15 per quarter or something like that. I ended up just taking classes to get out of work. I have about 30 quarter units toward some major.

It must really suck to be a student nowadays. I really feel for you, Jenny.

Jenny, I’d go to class anyway. Something similar happened to myself and most people I knew in college. (My alma mater, Rutgers University, has been competing for a prize of some sort for fucked up administration for many years now). I’d also talk to your dean. At RU they had say over the registrar, believe it or not, and could order them to add a class to your schedule at any point in the school year. I once had my schedule re-arranged after finals. (This was due to a clerical error in which all my course numbers were one digit off. I was registered-- and graded with Fs-- for 6 classes I didn’t take. This was discovered post-finals when the proffesors from my real classes couldn’t put my grades in. It was a nightmare.) As long as you’re attending class, it will be easier to sort out the scheduling error.

Note: Rutgers was seriously fucked up. This happened all the time and proffesors would let you in class even if un-registered if you had this sort of problem. Your univeristy may not be as lenient, but I can only speak from my own experience.

I wonder, Jenny, if anyone else had this problem. If so, you might consider marching to the appropriate office en masse and asking politely, with pliers in hand (and lubrication if necessary), to examine the rectum of those involved. You might be pleasantly surprised at the quality and results of future dealings with these individuals:)

Say… you don’t work at UNH, do you? I’ve had a thing just like that happen, but I was a student, not an employee.

On the first day of senior year, I went to the registrar’s and the business office, to see if I owed any last minute fees. They gave me the all clear, and I went on my merry way.

Then, on October 28th, I got an interesting letter in my mail box. One that said due to not paying $1,200 I owed, I was expected to move out of my dorm and stop attending classes by the 31st.

After panicking and wondering what the hell it was about for a few minutes, I called my loan-holder to see what was up. They informed me that they’d never recieved the university’s part of one of my loan forms, and advised that I call the registrar’s immediately. I thanked the woman, and immediately called the registrar’s.

The girl there sounded more than a bit nervous, and explained that they’d already taken care of the problem, earlier in the day. It seems that they “forgot” to send in their portion of the loan paperwork for 28 students! I wonder how many of the other 27 people were ready to kill them after they got their paper heart attack in the mail.
:wally

And it’s still happening. RU has not changed and I agree about going to class anyway. I’d say most of our grad students have at least some credits that they take one semester and receive grades for in another. You might want to talk with the professor to find out if this is common. S/He may also suggest staying in.

I must have you.

So Jenny, what’s the status now? Everything work out ok?