UNF offers many surprises to its students on a daily basis: free T-shirts on the Green, free scantrons in the Student Government office and no classes on a Tuesday in honor of Veterans Day. But not all of its surprises are pleasing, including the holds on students’ accounts that appear just hours before registration.

It never fails. Students check their accounts a week before and are in good standing for registration. They check it again, just to make sure, and still are set to register. Hours before they’re scheduled to add classes, a hold is placed on their accounts for failing to pay a late library book fine or to release emergency information for the Code Red system.

They don’t find out until it’s too late.

Then they waste a day removing the hold, and the class they need is full.

The university needs to inform students of holds in advance so the matter can be taken care of prior to registering for classes.

In many cases, the holds are valid. And the university administration is wise to threaten a student with his or her schedule in order to solve the problem.

But it’s not worth setting a student back an entire semester.

This problem is magnified with the recent cutbacks on class offerings and the Bright Futures financial aid scholarship. If there is only one class available, a hold on a student’s account can literally mean an unnecessary semester of college and the added pressure of finding funds to pay for it.

Registration holds should not be a matter of aggravation for students. If they need to pay a fine for parking or academics – they should know and get it taken care of. It is the extraneous holds of 14 cents due for a library fine that leave a bad taste in students’ minds about registration.