Enroll Today – Pay Today begins April 11

Students
When students enroll for summer or fall classes beginning April 11, 2011, they will have to do one of three things:
1) Pay their tuition in full
2) Sign up for the MCC Payment Plan (a $35 non-refundable fee)
3) Have completed their financial aid process resulting in aid being applied to their account. (Special circumstances may apply to students in the A+ program, veterans, and those using third party payment methods.)

Benefit Eligible Employees
When employees enroll for summer or fall classes beginning April 11, 2011, they must complete their tuition waiver paperwork and submit within 7 days after enrolling for classes.

If an employee has not completed Prepare to Enroll prior to enrolling for classes, the system will automatically kick you to that page. Verify/complete this information before moving on to the enrollment process.

Once Prepare to Enroll is completed, select ‘Term’, select your classes, select ‘Enroll and Proceed to Pay’, select ‘Proceed to Pay’.

Employees will then select payment option 3: Pay by MCC Fee Waiver (Employee or Dependent).

Enter in the requested employee information and submit your completed and signed fee waiver to appropriate business office.

Students - new payment options when you enroll

When you enroll at MCC, you must choose one of three payment options:

• apply financial aid that's been awarded
• sign up for the MCC payment plan
• pay in full.

If you don't, you'll be dropped from class.
Watch the video for more information.

Upcoming payment changes for students

MCC students will soon begin seeing this poster on all MCC campuses alerting them to the upcoming payment change.

When students enroll for summer or fall 2011, they will have to do one of three things:

1) pay their tuition in full

2) sign up for the MCC Payment Plan (a $35 non-refundable fee) or

3) have completed their financial aid process resulting in aid being applied to their account.

Special circumstances may apply to students in the A+ program, veterans, and those using tuition waivers or third party payment methods.

New payment model for students

MCC will be implementing a new payment model for students beginning in April 2011.

Currently students are able to enroll in classes without providing any payment or account information. The drawback to this system is students are able to “hold” seats in classes they are not serious about attending.

The new process will require students, on the same day they enroll, to either sign up for the MCC Payment Plan, which cost $35, or pay their tuition in full. The first payment for each term is as follows:

Summer – May 15
Fall – July 15
Spring – Dec. 15

Students who enroll prior to these dates only owe $35 for the payment plan at the time of enrollment, unless paying in full. Students who enroll on or after these dates must pay the first one-third of tuition in addition to the $35.

Students who enroll in a class without paying tuition or signing up for the payment plan will be dropped by midnight the same day. Pell Grant eligibility will be calculated real-time and subtracted from fees due at the point of enrollment for students who have completed financial aid files. Also built into this model will be processes to accommodate students who use 3rd party contracts, A+ benefits, tuition reimbursements, fee waivers and veteran’s benefits.

MCC-Maple Woods offers assistance through rental program, emergency fund

As students make a final scramble to enroll, go through financial aid, pay for classes and get ready to begin a new semester, one of the last financial obstacles to overcome is the textbook purchases.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, students spend, on average $900 on textbooks per year - about half the cost of a full-time semester at a community college. As students become more and more stretched financially, MCC-Maple Woods, along with other campuses, are stepping up to fill the gaps for the most strapped students.

The MCC-Maple Woods Emergency Book Fund is just that - providing a small amount of financial assistance to the students who need it most. But the fund depends on donations from employees to keep helping students. If you would like to donate to the fund, or are interested in holding a fundraiser to benefit the fund, please contact deb.cougill@mcckc.edu.

Along with keeping the Emergency Book Fund up and running, Cougill also has created an informal lending library, in which students donate used textbooks for other students to use free of charge. Faculty members also donate "teacher copies" of textbooks to the library for student use. The lending library has been very well-received by students, and in addition to returning the books they borrowed at the end of the semester, they often add more books to the stack, increasing the selection and opportunities for other students.

MCC-Maple Woods also participates in MCC's book rental program (see page 17 of this link). Students can rent textbooks for certain courses through the bookstores for much less than the purchase price. The books are categorized into three levels, but the highest students will be required to pay for a rental textbook is $65.

Governor’s Summit on Higher Education - A message from Tom Vansaghi

Higher education leaders from across Missouri were in Jefferson City on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, for the first governor’s summit on higher education. Gov. Jay Nixon (D) welcomed a crowd of several hundred presidents, chancellors, administrators, board members and faculty by underscoring the importance of higher education.

Presentations focused on the fact that the Missouri budget will be $400 to $500 million short next fiscal year (FY2012) and that the potential for cuts across state government-including higher education-will be substantial. Nixon acknowledged that tuition increases may be necessary beginning in the fall of 2012.

He expressed his appreciation to the higher education community for not raising tuition over the past two years—something no other state in the nation has managed to do. Other presentations focused on techniques and programs to transform teaching and learning in higher education and increasing the percentage of Americans who will earn college degrees by 2025 from 39 to 60 percent.

Nixon outlined four key areas he is charging higher education to focus on: attainment; academic program review; cooperation and collaboration; and funding. The expectation is that every college and university in the state will report their monthly progress on these four areas to the Department of Higher Education and they will report all findings back to Nixon.

• Attainment involves holding institutions accountable for aligning K-12 curriculum with higher education, enrolling more students in higher education classes and programs and insuring that more students graduate with a two or four year degree.

• Academic program review will hold colleges and universities accountable for offering academic programs that increase graduates in fields where there are jobs available. The Department of Higher Education will work closely with academic institutions to conduct a systematic review of all degree programs to insure this is occurring. Increased cooperation and collaboration is about creating more administrative and academic efficiencies.

• Administrative efficiency addresses each institution's ability to find more efficient and less expensive ways to operate, while academic will involve a detailed inventory of cooperation and collaboration around academic programs to determine whether they are meeting the goals that were intended for them. Additional collaboration and cooperation could occur through sharing faculty, libraries, equipment and expansion of dual credit.

• Funding includes asking institutions to develop multi-year, sustainable funding models that strike a balance between public funding, tuition and cost reductions.

“This is the time for bold thinking and bold action," Nixon said in his concluding remarks. "Tonight, I am giving you a bold new charge.”

Click here to see all speeches from last week's Governor’s Summit on Higher Education.

Printing limitations update

This fall, each MCC student will be allowed to print 200 black and white, single-sided pages at no cost. Once the 200-page allocation has been used, students may purchase additional pages for 10 cents per page using a credit card at the computer, through the library (cash only) or other authorized ‘Code Card’ sellers.

MCC’s tuition has remained $82 per credit hour for two years. To curb costs without raising tuition, unlimited student printing was eliminated. This suggestion originated from last year’s Budget Response Committee.

An additional bonus is this encourages students to print less, therefore using less paper and ink, contributing to a greener environment.