Policies and Best Practices
Financial responsibility agreement
Request an exception to release transcript with hold policy
The Student Account Services and University Billing Office (SASUB) maintains a transcript hold on all accounts that have a past-due balance greater than $0.00. This hold prevents students from receiving both official and unofficial transcripts.
An exception to this policy is granted in situations when a transcript is required for employment purposes and scholarship verification. Documentation will be required to substantiate the transcript requirement. CMU will only send the transcript directly to the requesting employer or organization.
Please email CMUCollect@cmich.edu for more information.
Prepayment hold and suspension of charging privileges policy
Central Michigan University’s late fee policy reserves the right to drop students from future classes and to suspend student account charging privileges at any time due to a past-due balance or other warranted activity. The charging privileges include but are not limited to meal plan and flex dollars, computer lab, printing allocation, bookstore, library, telecom and cellular services, access to the Student Activity Center and other recreation usage. The hold is applied and monitored by the Student Account Services and University Billing Office (SASUB).
Prepayment hold for course registration
A prepayment hold is applied to all accounts whose balance is past due 4 months or longer. If the student is currently enrolled, a financial discussion with a Student Service Advisor may result in the removal of the hold. Student Service Advisors are located in our OneCentral location, Bovee UC 119. For all accounts that have been referred to outside collection agencies, the hold will remain permanently. The student is required to prepay for the associated tuition prior to enrolling in future courses. Future financial aid eligibility may be considered in removing the hold. To have the hold removed, the student must meet with a Student Service Advisor to review their past financial history and determine the dollar amount required to be prepaid or if their anticipated financial aid is enough to cover the future charges. The student may be required to enroll in only one semester at a time to allow for review of student account and financial aid status. The prepayment hold may also be applied to student accounts due to returned bank payments, fraudulent activity, or other reasons not in keeping with the CMU Student Conduct standards.
Temporary and permanent suspension of charging privileges
Student Account Services may also apply, at its discretion, the hold on currently enrolled student accounts if it is determined that they are abusing their charging privileges. For example, excessive charging of flex dollars or bookstore charges that are not being paid by the due date. A current student may be limited to only charging flex dollars, required books and supplies to their account up until their financial aid disburses with no additional charging privileges until the next semester.
Other campus departments such as Connect CMU, University Bookstore, and CentralCard Office may apply a permanent charging hold on student accounts that have been referred to an outside collection agency. The department may deny service or require the student to verify their financial aid prior to charging only required books and supplies for all future enrolled semesters.
Permanent Suspension holds are also placed on student accounts for extenuating circumstances, such as returned bank payments, credit card fraud, inability to pay the balance, account in continued past due status, excessive use of charging privileges, purchase of multiple items to resale and other unusual or illegal activity.
Central Michigan University Transcript Hold Policy
The Department of Education is requiring institutions of higher education to release transcripts to students that have an outstanding financial obligation to the school under certain circumstances. Below is the regulation language:
- 668.14(b)(33) To provide that an institution may not withhold official transcripts or take any other adverse action against a student related to a balance owed by the student that resulted from an error in the institution’s administration of the title IV, HEA programs, or any fraud or misconduct by the institution or its personnel.
- 668.14(b)(34) To require an institution to provide an official transcript that includes all the credit or clock hours for payment periods in which 1) the student received title IV, HEA funds; and (2) all institutional charges were paid, or included in an agreement to pay, at the time the request is made.
Central Michigan University will maintain a transcript hold on all accounts that have an outstanding financial obligation that is considered past due.
When completing the transcript request form at the National Student Clearinghouse website, students that have a past due balance will receive a notice to contact Student Account Services and University Billing, informing them that their account must be reviewed by CMU before the transcript can be released. The student may close the notice and continue on with their transcript request and payment.
- Please note your credit card will not be charged until the transcript(s) is sent. The charge for your transcript will appear on your credit card statement as “Online Transcript Service.” However, a hold for the amount of the order (also known as a pre-authorization or pending charge) is placed against your credit card each time you submit a transcript request. The pre-authorization is determined by your bank. Please contact your bank with any questions on the pre-authorization.
The student should call Student Account Services and University Billing at 989-774-3618 to determine if they are eligible for the transcript. Eligibility for the transcript is as follows:
- The student has received Title IV aid in any semester for which that semester was paid in full by any means. Transcripts will be released even if a past due balance remains on the account.
- The student has an ACTIVE payment plan on file. An active payment plan is one where the student has completed a payment plan application and paid 25% of the outstanding balance as a down payment. If the payment is made via check or echeck, a delay of seven business days will occur between the payment and removal of the hold to release transcripts. CMU will also consider payment plans at the collection agency an active payment plan if 25% of the total balance has been paid.
- The financial obligation is from an error on CMU’s administration of Title IV, HEA programs, or any fraud or misconduct of CMU or it’s personnel.
Once reviewed, if eligible, the hold will be removed immediately for 7 days. At that point, the account will be subject to review for future requests.
Student Account Services and University Billing will remove the hold on a monthly basis for accounts where the past due balance has been paid in full the prior month.
A weekly review of the transcript request report from the National Student Clearinghouse will be done by Student Account Services and University Billing for accounts that qualify for the transcript release but failed to contact our office for review. A communication will be sent to students that may be eligible for the transcript release but did not complete and pay for the transcript. The transcript will be released for those that completed the request but did not contact CMU.