Undergraduates at the University of Minnesota pay the same tuition to enroll in any of the school’s 11 colleges — even though some students’ education is more expensive.
The cost structures in the colleges are very different, Provost Tom Sullivan said, and “if you have the same tuition for all undergraduates, then you run into a real problem of ‘How do we pay for extra costs associated with different colleges?’”
The University is considering a new fee that would make students in colleges with higher expenses shoulder some of the costs.
“It’s a policy question,” Budget Director Julie Tonneson said. “Should those costs be built into tuition and everyone pay for those costs or should they be more refined?”
Schools that run more intensive advising programs or have more expensive faculty tend to have higher costs, Sullivan said. He pointed to the Carlson School of Management as an example of market forces driving faculty salaries and the school’s costs higher than the University average.
The new fee would be charged on a college-by-college basis and would be added to technology or course fees students already pay.
A new “differential” pricing plan could be in place by the start of the next academic year, Sullivan said at the Board of Regents finance committee meeting Thursday. It’s still in early stages of discussion, as the administration waits on likely state funding cuts.
“Part of the discussion [is] what year does it get started if we were to make a change,” he said.
Student board representative Chantal Wilson said she’s supportive of the idea because it will keep students from paying for things they don’t benefit from.
But the Carlson junior said she’s worried that if fees get too out of hand, they could prevent students from pursuing the majors they’re interested in.
“I worry about this deterring students from choosing some majors that can be fairly expensive simply because the fees are so large,” said Wilson, who’s a marketing and international business major.
Simplifying fees
Students can be charged with more than 2,000 possible fees. The University is working to simplify the system so students know what they’re paying for.
“We had a lot of fees and a lot of structures in place, so it was time to look at them,” Tonneson said.
Fees are charged from the University-wide level all the way down to the course level. Some, like the $1,300 University fee, are similar to tuition and help cover the cost of education. Other fees cover resources like printing, computer labs and course materials.
Not all colleges charge the same fees, and some have different names for fees that serve similar purposes.
Tonneson said the goal is to standardize what students can be charged by a college and what those fees pay for. Administrators began reviewing student fees last year, and will present initial policy changes to the regents by the end of the school year.
Students pay thousands of dollars in fees annually, but many gloss over them when keeping track of their finances.
Tonneson said the University is working to provide more information on student’s bills, so they can see exactly what each fee goes to.
Natalie Sokol said she checks what fees she’s paying when she gets her bill each semester, but she doesn’t often budget for them.
“It’s something I usually forget about until my tuition bill is due,” she said. “And then it’s ‘Oh, fees, I forgot about those.’”