Big 10 Bursars conference

Tom Schmidt and Tina Falkner attended the Big 10 Bursar’s meeting at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan in mid-October. The meeting is a great time for us to learn what our colleagues are encountering and how they are surmounting some of the same problems we encounter (or sometimes just a good place to commiserate about a shared dreaded issue).

Here are a few items that were of particular interest:

• Tuition insurance: No schools in the Big 10 currently offer this to their students and only one school is looking into it. An aspect of this concept that was new to us, was that many of these companies require schools to cease offering any other form of tuition relief if they offer this insurance. Also, there are options for different levels of insurance. For example, it only pays out for medical reasons.The U of MN is not currently looking to offer this to students, but if the topic arises these nuances will be good to keep in mind. 
• 1098-T: There was robust discussion surrounding the change in 1098-T reporting, (reporting what students paid instead of what they were billed). All of the Big 10, except for Indiana University will continue to report billed charges instead of paid amount in January. Indiana has significantly modified PeopleSoft to be able to report on paid amount. Like us, everyone else is trying to establish a way to meet the new IRS regulation by tax year 2018. 
• Texting students: It was interesting to hear that none of the Big 10 schools are currently texting students about billing or other student finance related matters. 
• Payment plan: Most schools have payment plans that mimic our own (three to four installments per term), but several schools have extended payment plans that allow students and families to pay monthly installments for the entire bill. These plans start in advance of enrollment and are timed so the money for each term is received before the end of that term. These schools have either contracted with their tuition payment vendor or have a home-grown system to provide this option to students. 
• Military Third Party Payments and credit cards: Branches of the Military and veteran groups are pressuring schools to accept the military purchasing credit cards for payments for Third Party billings. In the Twin Cities we still have the exception to receive payment via wire transfers, as many schools do. But we learned that two Big 10 schools have lost the exemption and are covering the merchant fees for the military payments. Hopefully those of us with the exemption, will continue to be able to keep it.