Students struggling to pay tuition for fall classes might have been surprised to see this note on ASAP: “Students who do not make payment or payment arrangements by the due date will be assessed a $100 Registration Late Payment fee.”

The fee was implemented at the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester by the Financial Services Office.

According to Gary Lott, director of Financial Services and university bursar, the fee covers administrative costs related to unpaid student balances.

“We know that 80 percent of students whose registration is cancelled for non-payment actually plan to attend their classes,” Lott said.

“After they are dropped, they re-register for their courses if those classes are still available.”

“To provide more flexibility, we decided to not automatically drop students from their courses, but instead implement a modest fee to cover the cost of processing their late payments.” Lott explained

In contrast, UT Arlington — a comparable university in the UT system — charges a $25 fee for both late registration and late payments but still drops late-paying students from their classes.

Texas State and A&M also charge a $25 fee for late payments; however, their charges for late registration scale from $25 before classes begin, up to $100 in the first week of classes, and then up to $200 later on.

Financial Services will now accept VISA cards to pay registration fees.