YSU Tuition payment process is improved

Payments used to be sent to the university's bursar's office.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A new system for paying tuition bills at Youngstown State University will make financial operations more efficient on campus, university officials say.
Students paying by mail will send their bills to a Columbus address as part of YSU's new "lockbox" receiving system through Bank One, the university's bank, said Terry Ondreyka, vice president for financial affairs. Previously, payments were sent to the bursar's office at YSU.
With such a system, often used by corporations, government units and universities, payments go to a post office lockbox from where they are picked up by a bank courier up to 24 times each day, Ondreyka explained.
The YSU payments are processed in Columbus because Bank One, where tuition payments are deposited, does not have such a processing center in the Youngstown area, he said. The university receives immediate credit for the payment.
Recommendation
A lockbox system was one of the recommendations from a performance assessment of YSU by the State Auditor's Office. Such a system may reduce inefficiencies and processing time and increase cash flow and productivity, the report said.
The new system also is designed to free up staff in the bursar's office to engage in more "person-to-person contact" and redirect resources to student needs, such as account management and billing problems, Ondreyka added.
"It's really related to the more timely, more effective processing of payments to the institution," Ondreyka said.
He said it is the first phase of a process to upgrade the university's billing and collection processes. Another project in the works would allow students to pay tuition bills online.