Friday, March 29, 2024

Extra fees necessary for some colleges, officials say

March 23, 2014

In addition to university-standard tuition rates charged per credit, some students in technology and science-intensive majors are slapped with an additional fee per semester — which can be anywhere from $50 to upwards of $500.

These programming fees are only charged to students in majors that use expensive equipment or software in their classes, such as engineering, human medicine and the Eli Broad College of Business.

Office of Planning and Budgets Director Dave Byelich told The State News in a previous interview that these fees are needed to cover the extra costs associated with certain majors.

Byelich could not be reached for further comment.

Although many of the fees seem nominal in the grand scheme of paying for tuition, one stands out as higher than the rest: Engineering.

The reasons behind the $567 fee engineering students enrolled in five credits or more pay each semester can be seen as soon as a person enters the college and sees the equipment available to students, said Thomas Wolff , the associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering.

Students have access to wind tunnels, computer labs stocked with expensive and up-to-date software, teaching assistants and concrete compression machines, which are all paid for in part by student programming fees.

Wolff said half of the fee goes to computing services and updating equipment. The other half goes toward paying teaching assistants and technicians who maintain the college equipment.

He stressed that programming fees are only used for instructional purposes and do not go to pay faculty salaries.

“In the university budget, the tuition doesn’t directly go to the departments where the student pays tuition,” Wolff said. “Engineering faculty also have salaries higher than some other faculty do. To make sure for accreditation purposes, labs always have needed updated software and equipment.”

Wolff also said although there is little method behind how much the college decides to charge, the programming fee does follow tuition inflation.

The Eli Broad College of Business charges full-time students $200 per semester, whereas the College of Human Medicine charges programming fees of $100 per semester.

College of Human Medicine Communications Director Geri Kelley said the college does not have a specific breakdown of what the additional fees were used for readily available.

However, she noted the additional funds are generally used to support the cost of providing programs requiring something outside of the usual classroom, including highly specialized equipment and experiences with patients or special assessments in an office or laboratory.

Although he acknowledges some colleges often need additional fees to provide students with the best quality education available, ASMSU College of Engineering Representative Christopher Baldwin said he generally thinks programming fees are not necessary.

“I do see where they are necessary because engineering students do have more lab classes,” Baldwin said. “But some semesters I didn’t take engineering lab classes and I still pay for that.”

Baldwin said other colleges can afford to pay their costs without fees and noted he doesn’t see the need to burden students with further costs while in college.

“Other colleges don’t have programming fees, but still have teaching assistants,” he said. “Why do some colleges have to charge extra for similar things?”

Discussion

Share and discuss “Extra fees necessary for some colleges, officials say” on social media.