Registration yesterday marked upperclass students' first encounter with the Dash card, and many found they have yet to understand the intricacies of the College's new billing system.
Jean Shein '97, said while the Dash card seems quite similar to the old plan, she does not fully understand how the new system works.
"Everybody I know was confused about when we can use the card," Shein said.
Dash Program Administrator Jeannette Montgomery said her office received between 50 and 100 phone calls a day about the new system during the summer.
First year students as well upperclass students called to clarify information, particularly the way dining options fit into the new billing plan, Montgomery said.
The new system
The new plan divides student expenses into two separate bills. One bill is sent to parents and contains "attendance charges" such as tuition and room and board. Another bill will be sent directly to students and has been named the Dash Card.
The Dash bill is divided into four sections: a discretionary account, an administrative account, a dining account and the Dartalk account. Students can monitor their accounts' balances on the Dartmouth College Information System.
The discretionary account is a declining balance account that covers what students would previously have charged to their ID such as athletic tickets and Hopkins Center tickets, but also includes other charges like social dues for Greek houses.
Students can open their discretionary account by depositing any amount of money to establish a declining balance. Once the balance of this account reaches negative $100, the student may no longer use the account until the debt is decreased.
The administrative fee account does not require an initial deposit. It is there for fines that are imposed for "noncompliance" with College rules such as parking fines, late registration fees, alcohol policy violations, late charges and lost ID charges.
The dining account offers services similar to the ones offered last year.
But if students use more money than is supplied in their declining balance account, the extra charges are applied to the bill that is sent to their parents.
The telephone account remains unchanged and is still managed by DarTalk.
Items available at Topside convenience store highlight the College's new distinction between the discretionary and the declining balance dining account.
Items the College deems necessary are charged to students' dining accounts while all other items are charged to students' discretionary accounts.
Food items, magazines and toiletries are considered necessities that debit from the dining option.
Other items such as batteries, film, video rentals, blank cassette tapes and panty hose need to be rung up separately and are charged to the discretionary account.
Deposits to all accounts can be made by cash, check or credit card in the Dash Card Office, which is located in the former Validine Office on the second floor of Thayer Dining Hall.
Montgomery said students would not receive any warning when their accounts run low, it is up to them to monitor their accounts on DCIS.
The logic behind Dash
Director of Financial Services Win Johnson, who spearheaded the campaign to implement the new billing policy, said the new system reflects the changing nature of billing on all college campuses.
The College "was responding to what we saw as a developing trend in a lot of campuses, which is a debit card," Johnson said. "This is a chance for the College to expand the array of payment opportunities to students."
The College "really wanted to provide students with a way to use their ID cards in a more broad-based way," Johnson said.
He said he thinks students will benefit from the changes. For example, Johnson said many activities, which students could not previously charge to their IDs, can be paid for by the Dash card.
For example, "The Dartmouth Outing Club is now accepting the Dash card for their activities," Johnson said.
Johnson previously told The Dartmouth the old billing system was inadequately adapted to handle day-to-day living expenses.
It had "no credit limit. It is just a black hole," he said. "That can get students in trouble."
According to the original billing policy proposal unveiled in March, the changes were made in part to address "new federal cash management regulations which have significantly complicated the manner in which Dartmouth must process student charges," he said.
The proposal states that under the new federal regulations, which affect financial aid, many charges that used to be processed on the student bill are "non-allowable."
The original proposal stated the new system "permits the College to extend these services without relying on its own working capital to underwrite each student's entire line of credit."
Johnson said he hopes by giving students access to their accounts electronically the amount of paper billing will be decreased.
Montgomery and Johnson said it is too soon to tell whether or not the Dash plan is a success because it is still so early in the term.
Johnson said he sees possible future uses of the Dash card as washers, dryers and vending machines in the dormitories.
Complaints of complications
Many students, including leaders of student organizations affected by the billing changes, said the new system is confusing and complicates the financial side of many student organizations.
Billing for Greek house dues is now split between the bill the College send to students' parents ant the discretionary account that is part of the bill that goes to students, said Mike Armstrong '97, Intrafraternity Council President.
Dues that are deemed necessary are charged to the bill that is sent home and social dues are charged to students' accounts, he said.
Armstrong added that the system is still confusing for him.
Tri-Delta President Anne Jones '97 said charging a portion of house dues to students' discretionary accounts makes collecting the money more difficult because members of the sorority have to have funded their discretionary accounts by the first day of the term.
"It is difficult to motivate members [to pay] the first few days of the term when there is so much else going on," she said.
If students did not put any money in their discretionary accounts, they only have $100 to spend, Jones said.
Between making purchases at registration and paying dues, an account can easily become frozen at the beginning of the term, leaving the sorority without its fees, Jones added.
"It is a very confusing system partly because it is new. People should keep in mind that Greek houses across the nation collect their own dues," Jones said. "The College has sort of been doing us a favor until now."
Shein, who is the editor-in-chief of the Aegis, is also unclear on the uses of the Dash card. She said, "Nobody has told [the Aegis] that we could or could not use the Dash to bill with."
"We would rather just go with straight college billing as we have done in the past," Shein said.
Other students find the Dash card confusing, despite the extensive packet that was mailed to all students over the summer, and are baffled by its implementation.
"I looked [the packet] over a few times over the summer but it was too much of an effort," Michael Harriott '98 said.
"It doesn't look like the card provides anything new, just a way to reorganize the stuff we already have," Harriott said.
Melanie Popper '99 said the informational packet sent over the summer explaining the new system was confusing and made the policy "seem like a really long complex process."
But Jason Upshaw '98 said the new bill does not matter to him.
"I work so I can pay my bills," Upshaw said.
He said he did not understand the new plan at first, but he later "sat down and talked to some of the people involved in the program and they clarified it for me."
Freshman Amy Wood said she has so far found the card to be very easy to use but she is not always sure what account is being debited when she makes a purchase.
