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Q&A
Impact of unpaid balances on CUNY students' enrollment and academic progress
1:35:16
·
3 min
Council Member Eric Dinowitz engages in a Q&A session with student representatives about the impact of unpaid balances on CUNY students. The discussion reveals that unpaid balances significantly affect students' ability to enroll in classes, often leading to delayed graduation and additional costs.
- Many students struggle to pay balances, sometimes skipping classes to work and earn money
- Unpaid balances prevent timely class enrollment, often resulting in students being closed out of required courses
- The issue affects more students than just those who can't re-enroll, impacting class availability and graduation timelines
Eric Dinowitz
1:35:16
Can you just talk a little bit, I I assume you have friends who have unpaid balances.
1:35:22
Have they got or maybe you do, don't know.
1:35:24
Have you spoken to your friends about this particular issue?
1:35:29
Unpaid balances.
1:35:29
Unpaid balances?
1:35:32
Yeah.
1:36:09
Have you or your friends ever been closed out of a class because you would have applied and you had to pay your balance by the time you pay your balance the class was full, does that ever happen?
1:37:02
So just like to paint a picture, even for the students Mhmm.
1:37:05
Who do pay their unpaid balances or end up paying the unpaid balances.
1:37:11
So even for these students who can enroll for the next semester are often left at a disadvantage either because they can't enroll in the classes they want to or in the long run have to spend more money because they have to stay an extra semester or two because the unpaid balances prevented them from enrolling in the right class.
1:37:33
Is that a is that an accurate and fair statement?
1:37:51
So unpaid balance is so so we heard testify 13,687 students who had unpaid balances didn't reenroll.
1:38:00
But it seems that it's impacting these unpaid balances significantly more students and it's impacting them beyond just not re enrolling.
1:38:10
Mhmm.
1:38:11
It's it's impacting their ability to take the right classes Mhmm.
1:38:14
And it's impacting their ability to graduate on time.
1:38:20
Yes.
Akkeem Polack
1:35:30
Yeah.
1:35:30
Oh, like school fees?
1:35:32
Tuition?
1:35:33
Yeah.
1:35:33
Know a lot.
1:35:34
I go to York College, it's a predominantly black and brown school and a lot of them you know they're struggling, a lot of them sit out classes because they need to go to work, so they skip like every other class so they can make the money in time to pay before the end of the semester, so they can start choosing classes because you start choosing their classes mid semester for the next semester and a lot of them haven't chosen, I'm even one of them.
1:35:58
I haven't chosen my classes for next semester yet cause I need to clear the balances and we have to work and everything.
1:36:03
So it's it's really it's something that is so common more than anything.
1:36:21
Many times.
1:36:22
Come on, chair, this is that's my story.
1:36:25
Every semester at CUNY, that's literally my life where you're closed out because you select it in the cart but you can't enroll until you clear the balance and then oh sometimes the best thing is when they cancel the classes randomly because you know on the enrollment and you're just in the week before school you're just trying to figure out what you're gonna do for the rest of the semester.
1:36:48
Some persons have to do an extra semester, do an extra year.
1:36:51
I know people personally at my school and across the CUNY system who they're going through that now.
1:36:56
They have to do an extra year because they weren't able to enroll in time for their classes or the classes got cancelled.
1:37:36
That is very true because you know if if they don't have enough students they have to cancel the class overall.
1:37:42
Especially in some cases major classes, classes that you need for your major, they end up canceling it overall for students because they never met the threshold needed.
1:38:16
And even to get to school because they need a free metro cards.