Term Bill Mix-up Overbills Thousands

A glitch in billing office software led Harvard to bill thousands of students for more tuition money than they actually owe this month.

Term bills sent out two weeks ago billed all students for the entire cost of their tuition--$16,802 a person this semester--without deducting the amount of students' expected financial aid packages.

"Because of a programming error, anticipated financial aid was not put on the term bill," said Dean of Financial Aid James S. Miller. "The letter did go out and everybody was billed for the full amount."

The glitch affected the thousands of students--undergraduates and graduates--who receive financial aid, many of whom jammed phone lines with questions about the misstatements.

The University Billing Office added a special option to the phones of financial aid offices throughout the University to redirect the calls to the Billing Office and assigned additional staff members to handle phone traffic.

"We've gotten a lot of calls," said Nona D. Strauss, director of student financial services. "We put a choice on our phone system that said, 'If you're calling about your bill, call the billing office.' The Billing Office had a ton of people answering phones and responding to questions."

New statements--which include the correct figure of money owed--were sent out this week.

And though Strauss said the error caused plenty of anxiety, it will have few long-lasting consequences.

"Students were confused, which we don't like to do," she said. "But the calls were generally very short because we had all the [correct financial aid] information on the screen."

Strauss said the error occurred after programmers modified the billing office's software to bring it into compliance with new University standards.

"We had to update the student information system which produces the bills in order to accommodate the needs of Harvard's new accounting system," she said. "This was one little bridge that wasn't written."

And Strauss said financial aid officers failed to catch the error because the correct tuition figures showed up on their computer screens--they were simply omitted from printed statements.

"It was one of those things we didn't know was a problem until the bills went out," she said.

The August 9 tuition due date remains the same on the new bills, which were sent out less than a week after the incorrect ones.

But Strauss said there is no late fee for tuition payments.

And she said most families learned the correct amount owed soon after receiving their bills by calling the financial aid office

"It was one of those things we didn't know was a problem until the bills went out," she said.

The August 9 tuition due date remains the same on the new bills, which were sent out less than a week after the incorrect ones.

But Strauss said there is no late fee for tuition payments.

And she said most families learned the correct amount owed soon after receiving their bills by calling the financial aid office