Students who checked their University e-mail last week might have been frightened by a message in their inboxes: the deadline for their first tuition installment.

One week later students have had a chance to devise a payment plan, plead with mom and dad, or have a drink and ignore it.

Yet some students are still worried about subtracting the big numbers from their bank accounts.

The Minnesota Daily talked to students in Coffman Union on Thursday afternoon to find out who’s picking up the tab and how they’re going about it.

Their answers involved nervous twitches, talk of student loans and the overriding hope that next year school will be free.