It is tax season once again. Time to get some of your hard-earned money back from the government that is so swift in taking it from you. If you think a tax return is a complicated process, I just found something much more confusing to work with than the IRS to get my money back: our university.†
My scholarship was recently processed, and now I have a credit balance in my student account. No problem, as the University Web site states that "refund of unused monies associated with tuition, fees and financial aid may be deposited into your One Account that is associated with your CougarOne card. You can change the settings in your One Account so that refunds are sent to you by check or you can have them direct deposited to another bank account of your choice."
That sounds easy enough, and I’ve done it before without any problem in the past. However, the refunds are no longer processed in the method described on the CougarOne Web site.
There is a new link created on PeopleSoft 8.9 to request a refund, and I was quickly directed to it when I inquired about the refund process in person. I can learn the new process, but why does it only let me refund a portion of the balance in check form? Shouldn’t I be able to request full balance in check? So I paid a second visit to the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid customer service desk. They explained to me that I could only receive the portion of the payment in check form since I used a credit card for this semester’s tuition payments.†
It makes sense that one can only receive the refunds in the form of the original payment, but I also made an eCheck payment of an amount greater than the amount of check refund it will allow me to request. Shouldn’t I be able to receive the refund amount equal to the eCheck payment in the paper check form? Also, shouldn’t I be able to receive the convenience and interest fees that I had to pay for making credit card payments if I have to receive the refunds in credit card form? Well, upon an investigation with the customer service manager at the site, the answers to my questions were determined to be "no."
The manager and her supervisor said that agreement with the credit card company requires the school to process the credit card refund prior to any other refund. I may be mistaken here, but I saw no such disclaimers on the payment Web site or on the student financials section of the Web site.
The situation also didn’t make sense since credit card companies make money by charging payment-process fees. If they do not process payments, they do not get to collect these fees. Why would they force a university to process less payment through their network? And how was I able to request partial payment refund in check form before all the credit card payments are refunded?
Their final answer relied on PeopleSoft. Since the system appropriates all the refunds and it is not able to override it, I do not have an option to do anything other than what it allows me. The software should be designed to implement the policies, not the other way around. I am sure PeopleSoft is a powerful software as the administrators have described, but I am not sure if it should be powerful enough to overrule University policies – if there are such things.†
Kang, a mechanical engineering junior, can be reached via [email protected].
