The new student account balance threshold allowing students to register will soon decrease from $2,200 to $500 for winter term registration.
This decision was part of Oregon State University’s Financial Readiness and Success initiative, created by the Center for Advancement of Financial Education, et. al and sent to students in a letter in April 2023.
Heidi Sann, the vice president for Finance and Controller explained how part of the reason for this change was because they noticed students were progressing term to term without resolving their costs of enrollment.
“Reducing the account balance threshold to $500 helps ensure students do not continue to carry unmanageable balances from term to term, finding themselves unable to register for future terms,” Sann said.
According to the letter, this choice aims to prevent students from building up too much debt, something Isaac Danielsen, a freshman and finance major, agrees with.
“I think it’s good that they’re encouraging people to pay off all of their student costs before they allow them to keep going on and accruing more costs because that can be a hard thing to get out of,” Danielsen said.
However, other students have differing views. Freshman Anna Lundstrom has doubts that this was made to benefit students.
“More people have to pay their tuition and fees faster which means the school gets more money faster,” Lundstrom said. “And I feel like there are other ways to stop students from accumulating as much debt without stressing them out about financial issues.”
Alana Calhoun, a fifth-year zoology major, believes the university made this decision without the student’s best interest in mind.
“With cutting it down so much I think that they are just trying to get their money and not really thinking about how it’s going to impact the students,” Calhoun said.
Many students like Calhoun were unaware the account balance threshold change was going to change. While reaching out to students, most had no idea this was something being implemented.
“I think that they should definitely tell people more about it because I didn’t know about it until (my friend) told me, and from when I was asking my roommates about it they weren’t aware of it either,” Calhoun said.
Students also feel that the $1,700 change was larger and more sudden than needed, which could potentially be damaging to students.
“That’s more than a 50% decrease and that can put people in a really bad situation if they’re not able to register for classes,” Calhoun said.
Lundstrom shared the same sentiment and wished the university had taken a more gradual approach.
“When you have that sudden of a drop, that’s going to put a lot of pressure on people. And I think that if they had made that drop less sudden or made that drop more gradual, I think it would have been better,” Lundstrom said.
However, Sann explained that the new change aligned with the implementation of the Student Financial Readiness and Success program that was launched this year, and they were careful about the timing.
“We were intentional about aligning the timing of the account threshold change with other aspects of the program that support students to be successful in progressing to their degree,” Sann said.
Sann also emphasized that most schools have a lower threshold to support student success and that this choice would better align with student success efforts.
Students will see this change implemented starting the winter 2024 term and must have a balance of $500 or below or be enrolled in a payment plan by the time of registration.
