Bookstore holds in effect
460 student accounts disabled for late payments
By Kami Lewis
Staff Reporter

Send home isn’t an option for 460 students whose bookstore accounts were disabled because they failed to make payment on their accounts at the beginning of the month, said TCU Controller Cheryl Wilson Monday.
Wilson said the April amount still in delinquency was more than $1.3 million, an average of $2,800 per student. Last year’s amount in delinquency for the month of April was not available, but Wilson said she believed this year’s amount was significantly lower.

Molly Beuerman/SKIFF STAFF Freshman political science major Kayla Hunt buys supplies at the TCU Bookstore. Hunt is just one of many students who puts her purchases on send home.

The bookstore holds are the last element in a three-pronged approach to the university payment policy implemented at the beginning of the semester when the university dropped students with unpaid bills from their classes.

In March, housing reservations were impacted as minimum amounts were again collected before fall reservations could be made and the first wave of students found they could not purchase items at the bookstore with their school ID’s.

TCU Bookstore manager Llisa Lewis said business has been impacted by the account holds.

“Any time we can’t facilitate the students it’s frustrating for us, but wehave to follow the school’s lead on this,” she said. “It’s also frustrating for the students, who may have been caught off guard initially by the new policy.”

Lewis and Wilson both said the bookstore holds are sensible.

“If students are having problems paying their bills as it is, they really shouldn’t be adding more charges at the bookstore,” Lewis said.

Wilson said it has been hard to determine the effectiveness of these holds.

“We don’t have any way of quantifying the impact of the bookstore policy on its own,” she said. “But in general, it tends to get people’s attention because it has an immediate impact on the students.”

Wilson said she considers the payment policy a success.

“We’re very happy with the way the new payment policy as a whole has been implemented,” Wilson said. “From our perspective students have responded responsibly, and we’re getting more current monthly payments this semester than ever before.”

Kami Lewis
k.e.lewis@student.tcu.edu

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