Penn State's latest attempt to keep up with technology trends may save time and money, but it may also cost more patience than most Penn State parents are willing to lose.

For the first time, Penn State is requiring students -- and usually their parents -- to pay their tuition bills online instead of through the traditional paper bill and mailing system.

University officials say they are hoping that by making the bills available online they will save paper and make the process more convenient for students and their parents.

Penn State is forgetting one thing, however. Many parents of university students are not as computer savvy as the college-aged generation, and some parents may not even use computers on a daily basis. Being forced to pay tuition bills online could result in unnecessary headaches and ultimately cause more confusion than it's worth.

What happens if the e-mail notifying you that your semester bill needs to be paid is filtered to spam? What if some parents do not own a computer? What if the confirmation of payment is lost somehow, and parents are left with no proof that the bill was ever paid? Tuition is far too expensive an investment to risk errors of the technical kind.

Also, not everyone has fully embraced this new age of technology. Yes, there are tons of people who are fully "computer literate," but some people have not embraced computers and the Internet just yet. And they should not be forced to.

Our generation would arguably be ready for this kind of abrupt change in the way tuition bills are paid, but our parents are not.

The reality is that many -- if not most -- students depend on their parents to fund their education.

Bottomline: Penn State should continue to offer paper bills as an option for paying tuition. At least for now, it should be a choice and paying bills the traditional way should still be available for those who have qualms with paying bills online.

Kudos to Penn State for trying to simplify our lives and stay ahead of the curve.

But this is too much, too fast.

Offer those of us who love doing things online the option of paying our tuition bills through the Internet.

But give the rest of us the option of doing things the old-fashioned way.