There is no necessity for the Business Office to stay open later. It is already open until 7:30 p.m. from Monday thru Thursday.
Class and health fees can be paid online. Transcripts can also be ordered online. The primary reason that most students must go to the Business Office is to purchase a parking pass.
For students taking night classes that end at 10 p.m. the Business Office should not stay open until 10:30 p.m. to accommodate them. It is impractical to pay three hours of what is likely overtime pay to extend the hours.
If anything, Pierce College should work towards reducing the hours of the Business Office and move everything online. In 2016 the technology is readily available to make the transition to purchase parking passes that can either be printed or mailed.
Currently, a small percentage of students who struggle to arrive to campus on time for night classes after a long day of work may be inconvenienced the one day in the semester they need buy their parking pass. If they could buy the pass online the problem would be solved. As is, students can email their professors in advance to inform them they may be late and then get notes from the few minutes of class they missed from another student. While not ideal, the consequences are minimal.
Pierce College operates on shared governance and there is only so much money to go around.
There are far more pressing issues on campus than extending the hours of the Business Office.
Far more students would benefit from allocating those 12 hours for a custodian to clean bathrooms or somebody to fix the broken projectors on campus. A lot of things may be a hindrance to some students, but it does not mean that money should be spent to meet every demand.
Life rarely plays out to cater to our every need. A part of college is learning to efficiently manage your time and solve problems. The Business Office hours may not be designed to be a learning experience, but the complications it creates by closing at 7:30 p.m. should be resolvable by any student with minimal consequences.
Everybody recognizes that it is challenging for somebody to both work full time and attend college. Students need to learn to budget their time and think critically. At worst, this just entails missing a few minutes of the beginning of class once every semester. There is also the option of coming to the school the week before the semester begins and paying all fees.
At this point it is just not worth spending the taxpayer’s money to keep the Business Office open later than it already is. 7:30 p.m. is a more than reasonable time to close the doors and still adequately service the needs of the vast majority of students. The cheapest and most effective way to improve the Business Office is to make all of their services available online.
