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Bursar's Office Survey - Sping 2003

Results for Parents of CU-Boulder Freshmen and Sophomores

Prepared by the Office of Planning, Budget, and Analysis March 27, 2003

Two surveys were administered for the Bursar's Office in February 2003. One of these is a paper instrument that was mailed to a random sample of parents of CU-Boulder freshmen and sophomores. It is a scannable form consisting of 26 items. The other survey is a Web-based instrument that was delivered to undergraduate and graduate students. Both surveys were designed to collect information that could be used by the Bursar's Office to improve customer service. This report describes the results of the parent survey; results of the student survey are described in a separate report.

An incentive of two $500 scholarships was offered to students who responded to the survey and to students whose parents responded. The scholarship winners were randomly selected from those who responded by a particular deadline. One of the winners was the student of a parent respondent; the other winner was a junior who responded to the web-based survey. The names and contact information of the winners were given to the Bursar's Office.

The percentage of the parent sample who responded to the survey was much higher than percentages observed in recent student surveys on the CU-Boulder campus. Information on sample sizes and response rates, by educational level of parents' students, is provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Response Rates, by Educational Level of Parents' Students

Summary of Results

Results are reported for the total group of parent respondents, which consists of parents of freshmen and sophomores combined.

Billing questions. Most parents get their billing questions answered via telephone, Personal Look-Up Services (PLUS), or the Bursar's Web site. Fifty percent of parents indicated that they use the telephone as their most common way to contact the Bursar's Office for billing questions. About 26% of parents use the telephone exclusively.

FERPA awareness. About 50% of parents were not aware of FERPA before participating in the survey.

Reasons for contacting Bursar's Office. Billing questions were cited as the most important reason for contacting the Bursar's Office by a majority of parents (70%). Seventeen percent of parents reported that they contact the Bursar's Office concerning financial aid.

Phoning/visiting the Bursar's Office. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of parents indicated that they telephone the Bursar's Office once or twice each semester, and about one-third reported that they typically do not telephone the office at all. Only 3% of parents reported phoning between 3 and 6 times each semester. Seventeen percent of parents reported visiting the Bursar's Office once or twice each semester.

Bills. About half of parents reported they were aware of the Billing Address Option. Most parents (89%) indicated that they read the information that is enclosed with bills. Eighty-five percent do not think there is other information that needs to be included with the bills. Seventy-two percent reported that they typically pay the bills themselves, whereas 20% indicated that their students pay the bills. Slightly more than half (55%) reported that their students have not signed up for E-bill, whereas 11% said that their students have signed up. Thirty-three percent reported not knowing whether their students have/have not signed up for this option.

Contacting the Bursar's Office. The most commonly reported method of contacting the Bursar's Office is by telephone. Eighty-two percent of parents reported using this option; 43% reported using it exclusively. In addition, 7% use a combination of telephone and e-mail, 7% use telephone and U.S. mail, and 6% use telephone and in-person visits. Sixty-four percent of parents indicated that the telephone was their most preferred way of contacting the Bursar's Office.

Aspects of the Bursar's Office. Overall, parents gave higher ratings to the various aspects of the Bursar's office (questions 14-24) than did the students who completed the Web-based survey. There was little variance in the ratings over items. On a five-point scale with 5 being the highest, parents rated the Bursar's Office highest in the areas of courteousness of staff (mean = 4.3), professionalism of staff, overall quality of service, and accuracy of information (all receiving a mean rating of 4.2). Parents were somewhat less satisfied with the ease of understanding bills (mean=4.0). The lowest rated aspects were the ease of finding information on the Bursar's website (3.8) and the quality of the E-bill option (3.9). However, many parents indicated that they did not know about these two options or that the options were not applicable (38% and 81%, respectively).

Payment options. U.S. Mail was by far the highest reported method used by parents to pay students' bills: Eighty percent indicated that they use this method of payment; 51% indicated that they use it exclusively. In addition, parents indicated that they use a combination of both U.S. mail and cashiers' windows (9%) or U.S. mail and the internet (6%). Another 9% use only the cashiers' windows to pay bills. About two-thirds (66%) of parents reported that the U.S mail is their most common payment method; 24% indicated that the internet is their most common payment method.

Click here for complete results. They are displayed in tabular form, beginning on page 3 of this Word document. Extended response items are presented in their entirety in the last section of the report.

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Last revision 07/08/05