“This is not the students’ fault and we are trying to be as accommodating as possible,” BU officials say. Photo courtesy of the Student Information System Renewal Program

Student Life

BU Says It’s Working Hard to Fix Student Information System Woes

A new tuition payment due date and grace period will give students plenty of time to pay

Boston University is working hard to address issues with the rollout of a new Student Information System that has caused real stress for students this fall in financial aid and other key areas, says Christine McGuire, vice president and associate provost for enrollment and student administration.

“Yes, we have had problems, and we are apologizing for those and holding students harmless to the extent we can,” McGuire says. 

The massive, yearlong rollout began in fall 2023 and involved the transfer of 11 million records from a customized 40-year-old legacy system to a new Oracle Campus Solutions system, known familiarly as MyBU Student. The changeover included everything from financial aid information to student academic records to class registration, as well as student employee hiring through the new SAP JobX system integrated into Campus Solutions.

“Turbulence in a transition like this is absolutely normal, but we have passed normal levels of issues and have affected our community in a serious and significant way,” says Christopher Sedore, vice president of information services and technology and chief information officer.

Students who have questions or issues about the system can contact the IT Help Center at 617-353-HELP (4357) or ithelp@bu.edu.

The problem with the most impact on students seems to be a delay in financial aid information over the last few weeks. McGuire calls it a “perfect storm,” in which the project coincided with the federal government’s own flawed rollout of a new FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) system.

As a result, BU decided to put tuition bill collection on hold.

“I can’t say we held students harmless from a stress perspective, but we tried to,” McGuire says. “We pushed information to tell them early on: ‘The bill’s not going to be due on that date; we will give you plenty of notice when the bill is going to be due.’”

The new due date of September 30, 2024, was announced this week in communications to students who owe a balance, says Nicole Tirella, senior vice president for financial affairs, chief financial officer, and treasurer. Student will be provided with a three-week grace period after that before any late fees are applied.

“This is not the students’ fault and we are trying to be as accommodating as possible,” Tirella says.

The changeover was first discussed a decade ago, and work on the project has been underway for about four years. The breadth of the project means a variety of issues have emerged, from data format incompatibility to certain Blackboard features for faculty being overlooked.

McGuire’s division is adding three new positions for persons with Campus Solutions experience to smooth the rest of the rollout in student employment, and Sedore says IS&T is adding contract workers to help finish the project on the tech end. Tirella says it’s been a team effort across all their departments: “Our teams have been working nights and weekends to resolve these issues and we could not have come this far without their dedication to the University,” she says.

“This type of institution-wide, complex project is going to be bumpy,” McGuire says. “The question is: did it need to be as bumpy as it was? We will be doing a post-project review, going back and seeing what we could have done differently or more effectively, to make sure we don’t repeat those problems in the future.”

Soon, they hope, the problems will be in the rearview mirror.

“Please continue to work with us as we work through the rest of this transition,” says Sedore, who marked one month on the job last week. “We are on a really good system now, and we are going to be in a really good place.”