problem withdrawing from college class

Your suggestions would be appreciated--

my son signed up for a college class at a community college which he never participated in. We realized he hadn't officially withdrawn. I called and the registrar's office said it was a little past the deadline. I explained that he has ADHD (documented) and that learning executive function skills is something he's working on. She said she would take care of it and said she was fixing it on his record as we spoke. Now the school says $480 is due and has assigned it to a collection agency. On the website, the school says once it goes to a collection agency nothing can be done. Help?

I know--hindsight! he should have had it in writing. We thought of something else--at the same time, he was also working on another online course through a university which had different deadlines. I don't want to sound like he's full of excuses but I think this factored in. Also, he completed two other online courses with entirely different rules and academic calendar. What do you think?

Sara -- either you are rather young and have little experience of colleges, or you are one of those lucky people who floats through life never getting entangled in some of the weirdnesses that others of us seem to attract.

Yes, the college does, and should, collect for classes that a person *never* once attended:
-- some students, especially the eccentric geniuses (possibly AS?) often found in math departments, sign up for classes, study on their own at home, and only show up for exams, which they ace. If the college is going to keep functioning, it needs to get paid for offering the class and the degree whether certain students want to listen to explanations or not.
-- some so-called students sign up for classes, collect student aid, and then go for a three-month long spring break. The college sets strict drop dates and charges tuition anyway in order to avoid encouraging this behaviour; they do it once but once the bills and the F's arrive they either leave or go to classes the next semester.
-- some not-too-good students sign up for a bunch of classes and then shop around and decide which are going to be easy to fake through, and then they drop the others at the last minute. The college sets strict drop dates and charges tuition anyway in order to get people into real classes and doing some work before the term is mostly over.

College administrators who work with adolescents for years have seen and heard it all. My two classics as a college instructor were a young man who excused himself for being in the emergency ward with a PCP overdose and a girl who excused herself because she had gone to a 48-hour weekend rave and she had the new tongue piercing to prove it.
You get a lot further by explaining an honest mistake as calmly as possibly (firmly, but restrained) than by screaming and demanding you are "owed" something.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and suggestions.

I know that rules are rules are rules. Learning organizational skills is a challenge for all college students. I'm hoping this is a reminder to have calendars and files for every course taken. At the same time, I do see this as a reflection of organizational skills that are still evolving...maybe not as quickly as peers. I don't see any sense in "demanding" the change, but I do think a decision will need to be made that looks at all factors. I appreciate your time.

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Hello. My interests on this board are: Adults with LD, Social Skills, and Post-secondary education.

Leslie ---
The discussion on Bulletin Boards can become heated.

Everyone ---
Parents are hopefully supportive of their children, as the "kids" take
college classes. I have seen several parents take a half-day from
work and go to the kids college and register the student for classes.
This is __NOT__ good for kids to grow and mature. Parents should
be involved by asking questions of the student, if they followed the rules.
That way, everyone is "in the loop" and informed.

The student should go back to Registrar and Student Accounting, after
checking with Mom when she spoke to the Registrars Office; and
then check the schedule of deadlines. The student may not get
any money back, if the "100% refund" date is passed.
The student has the obligation to know deadlines; it's part of the responsibility of being a student.

Professors also pubish the deadline dates in their syllabus, of every single class they take. If you attend the first class, and never attend any
following class-session after, you have the syllabus as reference.

Sorry if I rant and rave. Best of luck to you all. It is a tough semester.

Hi,
I didn't expect quite so many responses and appreciate the comments.

Nothing new to add, but hopefully this can be taken care of. The thoughts that "sometimes someone needs to fall flat on their face" to learn are true. However, a $400+ bill is an excessive fall and really one that's unaffordable for never participating for a moment. I think a lot can be learned about this without paying this high fee. Parents can't always be there--true, and actually my son has spent over a year away at a college. What caused the problem here, as I mentioned, was the fact that more than one online class was going on. No one wants to hide or shirk responsibility behind a disability. However problems with executive function are not easily noticeable and really only now--as life's demands are greater--is it becoming more apparent. All the more need to learn new skills.

While I can associate with the difficulties of coping with ADD, and while I do not completely agree with the high priced costs of college tuition, I do feel that you are obligated to pay the $480. Unless another factor is at play, ADD alone is not going to account for someone to miss a whole semester course.

Having ADD, and playing that card to receive help and accomodations, and in some cases special consideration, is nothing to be frowned upon...it is called creating "equal opportunity," to refference the Constitutional issue at play. From receiving extra time on tests to having college admissions counselors give you special consideration regarding your low GPA relating to your ADD, there are a wide range of things that institutions are responsible for in leveling the playingfield to equalize opportunities. We should be so lucky to receive such generous accomodations.

The thing is, when it comes to failing, losing, or having difficulties- be they part of our ADD or not, we cannot be so quick to blame them all on a condition- some of the responsibility does fall on us. If the college is nice enough, they may perhaps credit you the money, out of generosity. However, they are not obligated, and for the most part, have institutional (not economic) reasons for this...basically those listed in the previous response a month ago. We cannot allow what we suffer from to cause others to suffer. This is the basic idea.

I think, to say a little more, regarding ideas for responsibility, that anyone with ADD can think of, is that before we get involved in a situation, for example, college, we have to be prepared to accept the consequences of failing to succeed. Perhaps the school will allow him to retake the course? That's a possible idea that shows a committment to education.

To be sure, we must also ask this question: Is your son suffering? If he feels guilty about missing the classes, then he will want the opportunity to make that up. If the issue doesn't affect him, then I really don't think ADD caused him to miss the classes. One component of ADD, specifically the one that drives us to get diagnosed, is that we feel guilty about not completing things, because we suffer from our mistakes and want to right them.

Suffering through anything is difficult, and it can cost us friends, money, time, jobs, and many other things. But for all these things, we cannot expect that there is something that is going to compensate us...console, yes; help us get back on our feet, yes...but not to compensate us. In fact, I will offer that it is the very suffering that puts the carrot before the horse, so to speak, that encourages us to be proactive in solving and erradicating our suffering. The government and our laws don't compensate for our mistakes, but they allow us to recover from them and hopefully find ways to keep from repeating them.

What would possibly work is attempting to retake the class. The point here is that the education is the important issue, including working around the ADD, and the school will recognize this. I think what they have and will refuse to recognize is an avoidance of education, not that classes were skipped, but rather that your son has no desire to retake the class- thus he does fall into one of the categories that was mentioned earlier. In asking for a refund the goal of an education is lost. The school will not accept this, because the goal affected by the ADD was the education, and I am sure the school would want to keep that goal. If it's no longer the goal because of this experience, an expensive lesson has been learned- but it doesn't fall on the school to refund the money.

I don't mean to be accusatory, but hope to have shared an interesting perspective with a more thorough analysis.

Best of luck.