Student Services

Campus Bills and Payments Are Online Coming This Spring

By Karen Holtermann

Spring 2005 | Bills for college expenses can be maddening. Payments from students and multiple family members, financial aid credits and fee payments not quite in sync, and tallies for student expenses for everything from library fines to phone services — so many possible scenarios make bill-paying a challenge.

UC Berkeley hopes to ease the process starting this spring, with the launch of e-Bill, a new online billing and payment system to replace the familiar paper CARS (Campus Accounts Receivable System) bills. The new e-Bill lets students — and designated family members and others — see their campus bills and make electronic payments directly from a checking or savings account.

“The redesigned online statement will be a lot easier to read and make it much easier to track past activity,” says Joyce Sturm, manager of UC Berkeley’s Billing and Payment Services. “For students and their families trying to figure out what they owe, what they’ve paid, and when, e-Bill will give them a much clearer picture.”

Students currently receive a CARS bill by mail once a month, as long as there is an outstanding balance on their account. The bill includes charges for registration fees, university housing and dining, library fines, phone use, campus health services, and other campus expenses, from emergency loans to recreation fees. The bill also credits financial aid for students receiving it.

“Many people find it hard to track transactions over a period of time with the paper bills,” said Sturm. “With the new system, you can view the monthly bills online, including statements from the previous 12 months and a history of online payments for up to 24 months.”

Students can authorize parents, family members, or others to see their statements and make payments.

To begin using the system, students must log on to Bear Facts
(bearfacts.berkeley.edu) using their UC Berkeley student ID number and password. There they select the CARS and e-Bill buttons and then create a simple student profile. With that complete, students can authorize others to view and pay their bills. The designated “Other Payers” — often parents, spouses, or family members — can then create their own user IDs and passwords.

Payments using e-Bill will be made via debits from a checking or savings account and credited on the day they are entered. (The campus does not accept credit card payments for CARS charges.) All activity will be confirmed with both online receipts and e-mail.

Sturm emphasizes that the student is the responsible party for the account, under the new billing system and the old. “For students, handling their own bills is part of the college experience,” she says. “You want them to know how to do it by the time they graduate, right? This is a good, safe place for them to learn and to become responsible.”