<p>I also posted this on the Rutgers forum, but thought the broader parent audience could comment...</p>
<p>So far, all communication & notices (admission notification, deposits, etc) from the University have been thought my DD's web account. Should we expect the bigger bills to be 'sent' the same way? Do any schools realize the parents are paying the large bills and it might be a good idea to include us in notifications? (I gave her my credit card numbers to pay the application fee, and acceptance & housing deposits, however I would assume admissions does not want to pay the banking fees on credit card charges for tuition).</p>
<p>On my S account, there was a place to add ‘authorized payers’. Those people also get emails each month when the account payment is due - it’s for everything posted - laundry, bookstore stuff, and tuition bills, etc.</p>
<p>I get the email…I pay the bill. Have your D look under personaliztions, authorizations, etc to see if it is offered at your school.</p>
<p>At UMass, the bills all go to the student, but the student can add the ability for parents to get notified as well. And they provide a portal linked to the student account where the parent can see the details and pay via electronic funds transfer.</p>
<p>But it all gets set up through the student’s account.</p>
<p>Check with Rutgers, and they’ll let you know what to do. Don’t know if this will be the case, but at my son’s school, every office we’ve dealt with is incredibly nice, efficient, and helpful–except for the office we pay the bills to! This years he’s taking summer school courses at another university, and again, the payment process is explained in at least two different ways in different places!</p>
<p>I think by law they can’t send the notices to the parents unless the student authorizes them to. </p>
<p>The easiest solution is for your kid to tell you how to access their student logon area to see the bill and pay it. You wield a bit of power here - if the student doesn’t want to give you access then you can leave it to the student to pay their own way.</p>
<p>D’s school does the same as CheckersMidwest and notrichenough. D immediately made sure Hubby and I were authorized to deal with anything regarding finances. </p>
<p>Amusing side note: s would normally forward the school bills to us and we would pay. One time, DH had a question and couldn’t access the information without s signing a FERPA form. S blew it off when he first left for school and we never followed up. Well, DH called him and said if he wanted Mom and Dad to pay for school, he would have to fill out and submit the firm. Voila, it was done.</p>
<p>Exactly the way we do it. At son’s school, it all appears on his on-line account. I have the password to get on. He really doesn’t care if I see see his account, grades, etc. If he did, then it would be on him to make sure that I got the bills at the appropriate time. I think he’s happy to let me take care of it.</p>
<p>Both of our kids HAPPILY signed the necessary forms for us to receive payment notification AND to deal with any billing issues. The KIDS had to sign the forms. I will say…we used the monthly payment plan and they never asked ONE time about our kids when we set up the account. We had auto withdrawal out of OUR accounts and the info was sent to us. The colleges, however, sent everything to the kiddos…but because we were authorized also, we got it too.</p>
<p>D’s college sends bills by email. We had D set us up as authorized payers before she left for college. So now the emails about bills go to both her and me. We also set up the ability to pay electronically, so paying the college bill is easy as pie–which is just what the college likes to see.</p>
<p>I think the first bill in the summer before freshman year might have come to the house through snail mail, with instructions on how to set up an authorized payer account for parents for future bills and payments.</p>
<p>My son’s college issues a separate ID number (if the student authorizes it) to parents in order to access the bill payment website.</p>
<p>I actually found the billing options somewhat confusing, and it took me a couple of false starts before I could get the payment system to work. Now I just make sure I do it exactly the same way every time and it works fine. However, the online balances and the paper billing statement don’t always agree, so I keep very close tabs on what is owed when.</p>
<p>Ironically, for one of the most expensive colleges in the country, their billing system is probably the least effective administrative office in the school.</p>
<p>my son is going to Tulane this fall.
I have wanted to get the admission’s username and password without my son’s permission and have been denied.
I have wanted to register him for early orientation, but needed another username and password…denied…
today I received a letter in the mail addressed “To the Payer Of Tuition for:” and then my son’s name …HA HA…lol…</p>
<p>ugh…called Rutgers yesterday. After speaking with a sweet student who kept spouting her talk points, I politely asked to speak with her supervisor. They only issue bills electronically via the student’s net ID and have no parallel parent portal. I told D1 this last night and her response was “you’re not getting access to my account, you can look at the screen when I’m with you”.</p>
<p>You need to let your daughter KNOW that these bills will be coming while she is AT SCHOOL…and SHE will be responsible for letting you know about them. Remind her that if they don’t get paid ON TIME…she will not be permitted to register for classes.</p>
<p>If it were me, I’d set up a monthly payment plan with auto deductions. Most schools have an arrangement with either Tuitionpay or Tuition Management Services. See what Rutgers suggests. It will give you peace of mind.</p>
<p>In my house, I played hard ball…I said…either you give me access or I will NOT pay the bills. My kids didn’t want to deal with billing issue and readily complied. BUT I was very prepared to NOT pay if they didn’t.</p>
<p>actually the bills come in during July & December, so she will be home. IMO it’s a poor system that does not offer a separate parent or billing portal if the student signs the privacy statement. I agree that giving a parent access to a student’s entire college account is not a good system. I have told her, however, I do need to see grades to continue to pay the bills.</p>
<p>My D’s school is the same way, and even after we filled out the FERPA, we still get nothing, it all goes to her…which basically makes no sense to nearly every family, but she gave her her email account password (it is only school related news that she gets there anyway), so I can check it and she is also instructed to forward to us, anything that we may need to know, and if she isn’t sure if it’s something we need to know, she errors on the side of sending it anyway.</p>
<p>Thumper1, we did the same. I have access to DD’s network account. I can see grades and e-mails if I want (usually don’t though unless I see an admin post about getting info from an e-mail regarding registration, bills, etc.), and I have access to enrollment page and bill paying page. </p>
<p>Once the bill is posted, I transfer $$ to DD’s checking account and it is up to her to pay it on time. There was one time she almost missed the date due to a heavy workload and swim schedule - had I not had access to her account to see the date looming, she would have missed it. It’s not that she is irresponsible, she was just too busy to keep up with the administration’s barrage of posts. </p>
<p>When we made the condition for our financial support, she was unhappy. Now she is actually grateful because she has had a busy year learning how to manage her life this first year in college and the support has been a safety line.</p>