OHIO — A college student at Kent State University was charged thousands of dollars on his tuition bill for not being in the selective service, and now he’s urging others to double check they are signed up.
Nick Lombardo, a sophomore, said has been working his way through college hoping to graduate debt free. The commuter student said during his first semester, he paid around $6,000 in tuition.
Then that price increased to around $10,000 for his second and third semester at the university.
“I did look at the statements this time, and I was looking down at how much each individual class was. I saw an out-of-state tuition bill,” Nick said of the surcharge on his tuition bill.
The current Akron resident figured something must be wrong with his bill considering he has never lived out of state. Lombardo and his father, Phil Lombardo, contacted the university to find out that the fee was actually due to the student not being re-gifted for the selective service.
“When my wife actually looked at the line items and saw there was a non-residential fee of $4,400, and just from the outside looking in you think, ‘oh this is easy because they just didn’t know we live down the street.’” Phil said. “Well, come to find out, when she made some phone calls, it was about these emails that he should have read regarding signing up for the selective service.”
All American men are expected to sign up for the selective service system on their 18th birthdays. Failing to do so is grounds for a felony, major fines and or prison time. Nick and his family were unaware that this rule existed.
Nick is now signed up for the selective service and he does take responsibility for missing the university’s email notifying him of this surcharge. He’s hoping others can learn from his expensive lesson.
“It’s just too serious I think of a punishment for not signing up,” Lombardo said. “Double check, triple check, just to make sure you are not getting charged for something that you can not control.”
Spectrum News 1 reached out to the university for comment. While they declined to do an interview, they referred to the state law that says that a university or college that enrolls a male student born after Dec. 31, 1959, who has not filed a statement of selective service status with the university, must charge the student any tuition surcharge charged to students who are not in-state residents, regardless of the students residency.
“It is a very expensive lesson,” Nick said. “Like I said, I do take full responsibility just for not looking closely at the emails. I am signed up. I don’t think there should be a reason that, that money is kept by the university. I think it should be given back to myself and my family.”
The university said the collected money goes toward its general fund.
The family will be meeting with the university soon, with the hopes of getting the nearly $4,500 reimbursed.
“There (are) the rules, and then there is the spirit of the rule,” Phil said. “There is a rule that all 18-year-old men have to sign up for the draft, and he was late, but he did it. So the spirit of the rule has been taken care of, so why can’t we just take care of the fine too? It’s just sad; it’s a lot of money, and what was the damage here?”
