The editorial is the opinion of the editorial board of The Daily Eastern News.

The sole purpose of a contract is to give two parties the peace of mind that a service will be performed and that that service will be performed at a designated price for the life of that contract.

If at some point during the contract circumstances change and make the deal less fair for one party, there is not much that can be done. That is the nature of contracts.

Then you have the university agreeing to let H&H Transportation out of its contract to run the campus’ shuttle bus.

H&H informed the university of an error that had been made in the company’s bid. Last August, H&H won the right to run the Panther Express with a bid of $53,998. Now, the company is saying it needs an additional $20,000 to finish out the rest of the semester and honor its part of the contract.

That is a large sum of money. Unfortunately, the school could’t make up the difference and the bus company couldn’t continue to run its buses while taking a monetary loss.

So the sides mutually agreed to terminate the contract. After all, it was the best thing for all parties involved, except for the students who pay $5.60 a semester and expect to be able to ride the Panther Express when they want to.

And what about the precedent this sets? With the growing number of construction projects and improvements going on around campus, there are sure to be plenty of bids for plenty of projects.

What happens when one of those bids comes in way under what it should be, and the university gleefully accepts it?

Maybe a few months down the road, the company comes to the university and says it needs more money. The university has no more money to give and the project cannot go forward without it.

Will the sides mutually agree to part ways, or will the university scramble to pay it off? Either way, the university won’t win.

If it follows the precedent set in this decision and terminates the contract, the possibility exists that bidders will constantly lowball their estimates and later cancel their contracts and work will never be finished on time, or at all, on campus.

Or the university could opt to try and dig up the money from somewhere, taking it away from somewhere else that could use it.

No matter what happens, the same old ending applies: students are left hanging, paying money for a service they don’t receive.