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TO RUN AFTER STUDENTS’ UNPAID ARREARS
SHEFA to hire collection agency
With just a little over $40,000 collected—a pittance compared to the amount that needs to be collected from students who owe the program money—the Saipan Higher Education Finance Assistance board approved a motion yesterday to form a committee that will engage collection agencies that will help it collect these owed amounts.
SHEFA administrator Merissa Rasa told the SHEFA board in yesterday’s meeting that so far only two students have made payment of about $300, putting their collections as of January 2015 at $46,860.
Decembers showed a total of just $46,633 collected.
SHEFA board member Joe Mafnas asked on how the collections were with those who have already graduated and were under their program and if they have reported or not.
Rasa said that there were about 800 to 900 letters that were sent, out of 2,000 students.
“It is really difficult to track those students because there is a problem with the addresses, with the current ones being from 2004,” she said.
Rasa considered creating a student ID number system to identify students without revealing their names. This will also include the students’ statuses as well.
Mafnas noted that under SHEFA policy, students receiving financial assistance are required to report to SHEFA on updates about their current information.
SHEFA board chair Josephine Sablan considered doing a request for proposal under the Office of Procurement and Supply to find collecting agencies and see their scope of work on how they would go about collecting payments from students.
“This is critical because there are a lot of students who are just not doing what they need to do so we have to come up with some collection agency soon so we could start collecting from them,” Mafnas said.
