St. Olaf will issue a total of $2,825 in additional housing and meal credit for students who will not remain on campus for the rest of the spring semester. Student Accounts relayed this information in an email to the student body on April 1, one week after President Anderson’s announcement of the switch to off-campus learning for the remainder of the year.
According to the email, the credit will be allocated based on different areas. Students who had been residing on campus before spring break would receive additional credit of $800. Those with a single room would receive $900.
Students with a full meal plan would receive $900 additional credit, and those with only a partial meal plan would receive a little less than half that number, at $425 additional credit.
One point of contention highlighted by students was the treatment of remaining Flex Dollars in students’ accounts. According to the email, Flex Dollars would be “prorated and credited based on usage for those who left campus.”
This accreditation has upset many students who previously thought their Flex Dollars would not carry over and thus sought to use them up before leaving campus.
At the time of publishing, the College has made no official announcement regarding a tuition refund, although Student Accounts have indicated to students individually that tuition would not be refunded for the spring semester.
Further, the College has communicated to individuals that there would be no refund for unexpired parking passes.
Based on these various financial changes and to ease the financial burden many students now face, St. Olaf has increased the threshold for remaining balances on student accounts. Now, as long as a student has below $4,000 on their account they will have their hold removed from the Student Information System (SIS), a steep increase from the previous threshold.
