Student Billing Goes Online

Twenty-thousand. What does that number represent to Harvard students? The number of pages they read last month? The number of e-mails in their inboxes which they have yet to delete? How about the number of dollars charged on their last termbills?

It happens to all of us, even the economics concentrators. Who knows how that not-so-modest fee for tuition, room and board suddenly ballooned by several thousand? Sourcebook costs, overdue library books, lost ID cards and extracurricular courses somehow always conspire against us. These miscellaneous expenses are easily written off to our termbills and even more easily forgotten. Unfortunately, this usually means that come vacation time, the surprise that awaits us at home is not freshly baked cookies but stern lectures.

Of course, there has always been the student billing office at the Holyoke Center where students could check up on the state of their termbills. But half of us never knew that it existed and the other half could not be bothered to go in active pursuit of bad news.

The University's decision last year to put termbills on-line is thus a welcome change. Now that it has been put into effect, students can go to www.termbill.harvard.edu, enter their Harvard ID number and PIN, and voila! end their ignorance of their fiscal plights. In fact, such easy access to termbill information may well encourage us to be more responsible about those accumulating costs. We might even remember those Widener books hiding under our beds before three months have gone by.

The website, which according to the administration is absolutely secure, also lists information on anticipated financial aid. Students that pay their bills via a payment plan have the option of accessing a schedule that informs them when their next payment is due. The mailing address for term bills may be viewed, so that students can ensure that their bills are being sent to the right places (or in cases of dire parental avoidance, ensure that they are being sent to the wrong places).

Twenty-thousand dollars? Definitely a gross overestimate of this term's bill.