Disapearing act hides pesky fees in cost of tuition

Many undergraduate fees that are currently charged alongside tuition will now be tucked into it, and charged as one large sum as early as next fall.

The fees, which currently differ depending on what major a student chooses, will not be erased completely, but instead will become part of the cost of tuition. When school starts next fall, students might notice that their tuition has increased, and many of the fees that once littered their tuition bill are no longer there.

The State Board of Higher Education approved a revised proposal to incorporate these departmental resource fees into tuition on Friday, after extensive lobbying from student leaders and Oregon University System administrators throughout the fall.

These fees that are currently charged to students can cost anywhere from $5 per credit for fine and performing arts courses to $35 per credit for engineering courses. They help provide funds for necessary department equipment as well as other department specific services.

University-wide fees, such as the one that pays for student groups and the health fee, would not be affected by the changes.

All resource fees paid by undergraduates will be eliminated and rolled into tuition no later than fall 2011.

Resource fees can be misleading to students because they are not included in tuition costs, said Jay Kenton, OUS vice chancellor who presented the proposal at the Jan. 4 meeting and was instrumental in creating it.

Kenton also said resource fees can cause difficulties when a student tries to pay for tuition with financial aid, because student loans cannot be used to be pay for extra fees associated with classes. With these fees rolled into tuition, students may be able to receive more financial aid.

PSU will not gain or lose money because of the changes, according to Kenton.

While there were a few concerns raised at the meeting over the loss of revenue generated by resource fees, Kenton said OUS will attend a special session of the state legislature in February in order to give an update on the status of the proposal.

“If the emergency board does not agree, we have the opportunity to defer the changes from fall to some other time,” Kenton said at the meeting.

The proposal is the result of research by an ad-hoc OUS committee formed last year to investigate ways to give students a better understanding of tuition.