By Patrick Longchamps
The coming fall semesters due date for tuition has been moved up 15 days from July 15 to June 30.
The college is saying it’s doing so to benefit new students coming to the college and to grant more time to level out the various sections within the programs.
“I don’t know if it benefits the school; really it’s not the reason the college is doing it,” said Jeff Macnab, registrar. “It doesn’t hurt that it gives the college more time for hiring and making plans for that coming semester.”
The decision of making the change came from the president’s council and affects all three campuses. Macnab said it isn’t an attempt to slowly move the due date earlier, and there is no change to the tuition due date of the winter and spring semester. The college also sees the changes as a way to help students establish their living situations, finding a job around the area and allows more time for waitlisted students.
But the change has some students concerned they are losing time that could be used to save up money.
“I use time management to plan accordingly, to save up money for a certain amount of time. Then they bump it, it messes up my plans,” said Deanna Dziarski, a first-year radio broadcast student “This might ultimately not let me get into school. They should be moving it later, not earlier.”
For students who can’t pay for the tuition right away, the deferral process allows student’s to pay a $20 administration fee and put down a small down payment. For returning students, the payment is $100 plus the admin fee, and for new students it’s $480 plus the administration fee.
The payment is put towards the tuition. Macnab says the higher cost for new students is attributed to not having a file on them.
“The plan wasn’t meant to move everything around; it’s consideration for new students to plan everything out and there’s lots of flexibility,” said Macnab. “The deferral process is there to be sensitive to the financial change.”
The Ministry of Education had asked the college to review the payment process and consider changing the deposited date to June 1.