Nick Hawkins, a history freshman, had a tough experience when money that was supposed to be put into his PeopleSoft 8.9 file was accidentally placed into someone else’s. It took one month for the ordeal to be resolved. Students relying on a system that can’t withstand human error should be worried.
It should be assumed that someone who files a check in the wrong name must either not be paid enough or is a careless person to begin with. Filing a check in the wrong name has the potential to destroy a person’s future.
There should be serious check-ups on employees to make sure that they are doing their jobs and not carelessly making mistakes.
Also, the people in charge of PeopleSoft should not be charging convenience fees for making payments online. Tuition alone is a brutal payment, but it seems as though the administration does not care or realize the impact tuition has on students.
The solution to these problems should be obvious: hire more employees who are willing to work with people, as well as restructuring the way PeopleSoft 8.9 handles its customers.
With more employees working fewer hours, each employee would be ready to handle any person’s questions in the blink of an eye.
More people on hand would lead to fewer disasters in terms of miscommunications or transactions. Why doesn’t the school use the convenience fees to buy a filing machine that eliminates the possibility of human error?
The program should have some type of on-the-spot communications feature such as a live chat so that any student with a problem could immediately contact an on-hand technician, which could potentially eliminate misunderstandings.
There are of course opponents to any solution.
Perhaps the school does not feel that employing more people will fix any problems at all, or that a radical change to the PeopleSoft system is too costly and problematic.
If a university is willing to make students pay convenience fees, it should be entitled to use a little more money to fix blatant problems.
If the school simply takes the time to fortify its current personnel, many problems can be avoided.
Dealing with money in a University setting is a very big deal, so the fewer mistakes there are, the happier everyone will be.
