It’s time for some students to take responsibility

All too often students drag their feet on issues like obtaining financial aid, scholarships, and housing plans.

As a result, it not only puts stress on the student but also burdens the staff and faculty with last-minute applications and changes.

Students need to be responsible for making up their minds on time, and one department at Chadron State College is helping out.

The Housing Department has taken action addressing the issue of indecisive college students. A $150 room reservation cancellation fee is going into effect next fall semester. All students who cancel a room reservation after the deadlines of June 1 for the fall semester and Dec. 1 for the spring semester will be charged this fee.

I was at first skeptical of this new fee, but after talking to Director of Housing Sherri Simons I am convinced that this is a good policy for CSC.

The $100 deposit that all residents were required to pay for our first housing contract has been discontinued.

“The college never used the hundred dollars that you put on file. It was never intended to be a fee to fix up your room. Very few students were actually charged from their deposit because we’re not in it to make money. Typically if anything does get broken it’s more than a hundred dollars,” Simons said.

I also learned that the Housing Department is not responsible for the state of the room when returning to the dorms after summer break.

Alan Cisneros is the Maintenance Supervisor, while Blair Brennan is the Physical Facilities Coordinator, the specialists who keep our dorm rooms in tip-top shape.

If you have any concerns, such as your dorm room involving cleanliness or caulking in bathrooms, you are highly encouraged to bring it to their attention.

In order to replace that fee all incoming students will pay a one-time non-refundable fifty dollar application fee.

All students that paid the original fee will be refunded $50 and it should be available to pick up in the business office.

The purpose of this new fee is to force upper classmen to decide whether they are living on or off campus when reserving a room.

I feel that this policy is a good idea because it teaches students responsibility.

When signing a contract or lease for a house you wouldn’t cancel after signing because you found somewhere else to live without expecting monetary consequences.

Here at CSC we have gigantic rooms compared to Nebraska Wesleyan or the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

But there are other issues such as which dorm rooms are available, or whether freshman can have a private room.

If upper classmen hold their rooms all summer and past the deadline, the Housing Department can’t guarantee the freshman what they are looking for in a residence hall.

Therefore the students must now be rightfully financially pressured to make up their minds. This is intended to be helpful, not mean.

“It’s not to penalize the students. What we want is for students to make up their minds. The only way that we can place incoming students is to know what rooms are going to be available. We have told incoming freshman, ‘No, you can’t have a private room. You can’t live in High Rise.’ Some students base whether they are going to come to Chadron State College on what they want in a resident hall room,” Simons said.