April 13, 2020 – Santa Fe College announced that they are lifting registration stops for students who have overdue fees of $200 or less. College leadership wanted to remove this hurdle for students, saying the need for students to be able to continue their education outweighed their need to collect some fees at this point. The decision allows students to sign up for both summer and fall classes despite fees assessed from parking fines, overdue library materials, lab fees and other nominal costs.
In addition to having to keep up with their classwork, students have also had to quickly learn resiliency – living in an almost exclusively online world even if they find themselves in the digital divide, trying to find reliable streams of internet to complete class assignments, isolation from friends and family and so many more concepts marking the new “normal” brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The issue was brought to the attention of SF President Paul Broadie II and the college’s vice presidents after discussions among the Emergency Management and Enrollment Management groups. SFPD dispatchers Jason Harmon and Kaylen Schroeder had received calls from students concerned that they were not able to register for summer classes because of parking tickets they received earlier in the spring term. Enrollment and emergency management teams brought their recommendations to Executive Leadership, who made the decision to remove the registration stops and set the $200 limit.
The decision will not remove the fees owed, but rather allow students to register for classes for the summer and fall terms. Students will be required to pay the fees before being allowed to register for spring 2021 classes.