Collecting Program Fees

Once a budget is built for the program, the faculty leader must determine how to best collect the program fee from each participating student.  There are a couple of options for responsible collection of funds from students, and the best option for any particular program will depend on the timing of when the fee is confirmed, which academic unit is planning the program and the level of administrative financial coordination available within that unit, whether an outside partner is involved that can collect fees directly from individual students, and other factors.

Options for collection of fees include:

• Submitting the fee to the University Budget Office and Office of the Bursar for course fee approval and posting to student bursar accounts. Please contact embeddedprograms@psu.edu for more information regarding this process.
  • Note that the timing of posting and collecting student fees via Bursar account may not align with timing of faculty/department paying program expenses abroad.
• Faculty leader/academic department collects checks from students to be deposited into a University account. Please do not collect cash from any student or program participant.
• If using a third-party provider to assist with planning and running the program, students might have the option to pay that entity directly for the program fee.

Withdrawal Policy

Since the budget for the program is managed by the academic unit and faculty member, the specifics of the financial arrangement will vary a bit from program to program. In most cases, the budget for the program is dependent on a minimum number of students attending. As such, when a student drops the course or chooses not to attend the international portion of the course, it can have a serious impact on the program budget.  It is advisable for most programs to have firm deadlines for commitment to travel and payment of fees as well as a requirement for students to sign a written withdrawal policy indicating their agreement to pay a percentage of the program cost or all unrecoverable costs should they choose to withdraw after committing to attending the program.

 

Budget Office Approval Process

In order to charge an embedded program fee to students’ bursar accounts (which will technically be a Class Fee in Lionpath), you must receive approval for the fee from the University Budget office.

*Note – When posting an embedded program fee to a students’ Bursar account, the College is actually posting what is known as a Class Fee.  This Class Fee, categorized as a “miscellaneous fee”, can be posted with a manual charge, which means that the charge will be posted to each individual student’s account separately. A Class Fee is not to be confused with a Course Fee, which is a fee that is calculated within the tuition and the College would not need to do anything with this.

1.       Check with your college or department financial staff about getting a cost center set up for your embedded course.  The cost center is not required on the BT06 Form, because the money cannot flow back from the Bursar to a specific cost center, but the college itself can move funds into/out of the cost center.
2.       Complete the BT06 Form (link/download) for the Budget Office in order to request approval for a new class fee. See sample BT06.
3.       Create a Budget Estimate, which will be sent along with the BT06 Form to outline what is included in the cost. Alternatively, you could include a formal proposal from a program provider that outlines the cost.  See embedded course budget template (link) if you’re building your own.
4.       Obtain the appropriate signatures on the BT06 Form (and attached budget estimate) from the Budget Administrator (typically, Associate Dean or Director of Academic Affairs), Budget Executive (Dean/Director of Academic Affairs/Chancellor) and College/Campus Financial Officer. 
5.       Email the completed and signed BT06 Form & Budget Estimate to the Budget Office for approval. This can be sent to Andy Reisinger (agr1@psu.edu), the University Budget Officer, and Executive Assistant, Patty Tarbay (pam13@psu.edu).  Copy both Andy and Patty on the email and follow up with them regularly on the status of the approval process.
6.       Once the Budget Office has signed off on the BT06 Form, a copy will be returned and should be kept for your records and the records of your department financial staff.
7.       Forward a copy to the Bursar’s Office to Valerie Brighton (vjd105@psu.edu) and cc’ing Anna Schirling (amf186@psu.edu) for their records.

 

Bursar & Lionpath Item type Number Processes

In order to apply the embedded program fee, or class fee, to students’ bursar accounts, you must use a Lionpath Item Type Number that is provided by the Bursars Office. This number is associated with the fee label that shows up in students’ bursar accounts – for example, “Denmark Embedded Program” or “Cambodia Embedded Program”. However, the Item Type Number is not associated with a specific dollar amount – the fee amount is entered manually. (See more about the process below).

Contact the Bursar Office liaisons, Valerie Brighton (vjd105@psu.edu) and cc Anna Schirling (amf186@psu.edu) with any questions related to the Bursar’s Office. 

1.       Complete a LionPath Item Type Request Form and send it, along with the signed BT06, to Valerie and Anna. It is ideal to submit these forms by early October for Spring Break embedded course travel.
2.       The debit information on the Item Type Request Form may be left blank, and the Credit fields should include our budget information for the student fees to be transferred back to your department. Valerie does not need the cost center(s) information on the form, since they do not transfer back to specific cost centers. See sample Item Type Request Form (link/download).
3.       Valerie will respond via email with a 12-digit number. Regular follow-up may be required. It is recommended to keep track of all of these numbers and their associated fee information (see more below about organization).