Although it’s fortunate the neediest students are covered from health care costs by grant money, that assistance shouldn’t have to be used for a mandatory health care plan. The grant money students use to pay for university health care is money that is being taken away from other expensive costs. Grants should be utilized for tuition, room and board and textbooks, which are all more everyday issues in student life, rather than university health insurance.

The program is adding another large cost to college bills, and it’s just giving students another fee to worry about paying on top of the expensive price of college to begin with. Postgraduation debt is rising, and education is becoming more and more of a fiscal burden on students and their families. This plan by the university is not making it any easier for students — even those who already are in need financially — to be good stewards of their money.

Also, with only 605 students enrolled in the plan, it should be small enough where the university should be able to give individual attention to those enrolled, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Linguistics freshman Madelain Thomas told The State News in a recent article (“Numbers show most students paying new MSU health plan out-of-pocket” 3-23) that after she failed to notify MSU of her current health care, she automatically was charged for the university program. After talking to the school, it said she missed the cutoff date and there was nothing they could do.

When that few of students are in a program, the university should be able to give one-on-one attention to them, especially when billing problems arise.

Something as negligent as forgetting a few forms can result in costs upward of $1,000. As students use Thomas as a warning to always check MSU bills and make sure they are aware of what they are paying for, the university also could be doing more to work with students who made little mistakes that cost them a lot of money.

Students must be responsible for knowing what every charge means. By keeping a line of communication open between the Office of Financial Aid, students and parents can make sure there is no confusion. However, communication goes both ways; the university should listen to any arising issues with bills.

Victor Draine, Vice Chair for Governmental Affairs of MSU’s undergraduate student government, said he was unaware that people would have to pay out of pocket for the health care program. Hopefully university officials and members of ASMSU will look at this data and re-evaluate MSU’s mandatory health care program.