Disagree. Whoever signed the housing contract will receive a negative report on her credit report.
Pay it. Some colleges and universities are tough regarding collection of unpaid bills.
OP: Please name the school so that others are forewarned.
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The school notified you via the contract your daughter signed what the penalty would be if she didn’t cancel the way the contract stipulated she needed to if she didn’t want to pay a penalty.
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If she fights it and they drop the fee, it will not impact anyone’s credit. If she fights it and they won’t budge, then she needs to pay it.
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I’d try talking to whoever at the school can get the fine canceled. But if it doesn’t happen do pay it before it goes to collections.
Ideally housing should have known from the admissions office. But lots of inefficiencies in the system.
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Agreed. All schools except 1 were able to take the “declined admission” and communicate it through the system. If she/we had any idea we needed to decline to individual departments, we would have made sure she did.
The headspace of an 18 year old who is trying to navigate this process herself (although parents certainly helped but we wanted her to do most of the heavy lifting to feel good about her decision) is very scattered. We made sure she notified every university and declined specific scholarships ASAP when she decided. She did. Had anybody or anything alerted her or us to the need to speak to Housing separately, of course that would have been done.
As to the back and forth about applying for housing, it really isn’t an option at large schools to wait until you have confirmed attendance before applying for housing. We, like many, lost deposit money. It is a bit of a game and frustrating.
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I was going to suggest contacting admissions first, but they are already looking ahead and will likely tell you that the departments are managed independently - something you just learned.
If each department has their own communications, budget, finances, management, etc., there is a chance that those at the top do not know that this is happening.
Thanks.
And I will post this in the correct spot (with school name) but I want to see how this plays out after my daughter (and I) do some more outreach to the school.
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I guess my kids were lucky, all of their universities guaranteed housing for freshmen, housing option assignments were based on different factors at all of them, one was date of application submission. My one daughter got stuck in a forced triple because it was the honors dorm, and they only tripled dorms with a/c.
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I think contacting someone high in the chain of command to discuss this is a great idea. Schools have student information systems that allow things to be set up so that every affected department is notified when a student’s status changes. Administration needs to be aware when the school is not using the system properly to benefit its own departments and the students it serves.
At the minimum, when a student who submitted an enrollment deposit withdraws prior to matriculation, they should automatically be instructed to contact the housing office if they submitted a housing deposit.
Just as an aside , it’s the fact that the student formally notified the school that they wouldn’t be attending that makes me feel the school should inform them that they have to contact housing (or should have a system in place by which housing will be notified by the school). Sometimes students enroll in classes and subsequently drop those classes. They assume that doing so is the same as informing the school that they won’t be attending. It is not. That student could still enroll in classes, so no one would know that they don’t actually plan to attend.
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The difficult part here is that we don’t know whether or not the school had a notification process as part of the declining the offer of admission.
In my experience, often times those kinds of notifications can be pop up windows or secondary box to check and I have seen plenty of people basically ignore the pop-up window and/or check secondary check processes without paying attention as they try to complete a process as quickly as possible.
When a problem starts off by not reading the housing contracts and not understanding what’s been agreed to, it is equally likely other things have been overlooked/missed during the process.
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Would the housing office honor the contract if she wasn’t a student at the school? Can non-students get housing by applying for housing and then just living there but not going to school (or even taking a minimum number of credits? where did they send the notices for her housing assignment? If it was to her school email, was that cancelled when she didn’t accept the admissions offer?
Oh, I’d be taking this up the line and not dealing with the person who answers the phone. Or I’d be moving in.
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Moving in would be way more than $900 and I’m guessing that payment period has passed. My son withdrew from college freshman year, withdrew from the university and then had to contact housing to do the same.
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A deposit only holds it until the student cancels housing because they won‘t be attending that college. I‘m willing to bet that spot will not remain unused that semester - but instead be offered to someone on the housing waitlist.
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Did you ever get a room assignment? If not then the school can’t claim to have been unaware that you weren’t going to attend.
Would need to see what you signed but I think that could be a productive way to approach the discussion.
On what day was I provided housing info and or why was the only follow up contact a bill?
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We are trying. So far it has been stonewall “She signed a contract and owes a no show fine.” repeat on loop. Your reply makes me wonder if the follow ups messages were indeed to her school email (that she never used once to my knowledge.)
@JD7777
Good luck. Might just be an expensive lesson learned.
Curious to know why she said yes to 6 schools? (The 5 discussed + the one she attended). That seems excessive.
Except the OP did not cancel the housing, thus the charge. That room was held for OP’s student which means another student did not get initial housing. Whether they fill the room after the fact or not has nothing to do with it.
She didn’t say “yes” to 6 schools. She was accepted into 5 schools that she could afford (including where she attends) and she had to apply for housing before accepting/not accepting. It is a racket.
As soon as she made her decision she contacted each of the 4 remaining schools and declined their offer (as we would expect any student to do so another student can come in.). In this 1 case that I have described here, she got a 900 dollar bill for not also telling Housing she wasn’t coming. In 3 other cases it was not an issue and declining admission meant the housing wasn’t needed.
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She would have provided the troublesome college with her methods of contact. She is responsible for checking/ updating them as needed. If they contacted her using one of the methods she provided I think you may be stuck
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Check spam before you conclude that she never got a warning/second notice.
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