2008 Woodie Awards
Optional tuition fees spark questions for PSUC students
Benjamin Pomerance
Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: News
Originally published: 12/6/07 at 6:08 PM EST
Last update: 12/6/07 at 6:06 PM EST
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For the last year and a half, Jacklyn Darrah wondered if she was giving her money away.
A large sum of money was going toward funding her college education - that much she knew. Yet the PSUC sophomore also knew that a significant percentage of what she paid each semester had nothing to do with her college tuition. The money was going to the college, Darrah said, but she did not know why.
"So much of the bill is made up of all these fees," Darrah said, "but nobody ever really bothered to explain what the fees were. I was just blindly paying the money, but I didn't really even know if I had to pay some of the fees or why I was paying them. The money was going somewhere, but nobody ever explained where."
Annoyed by this lack of understanding, Darrah began to make it a point to learn what all of those little fees were for.
She even wrote an essay for one of her classes about paying money to the college without knowing why. The more she researched, the more she realized she was contributing money for fees she was not actually required to pay for.
"I never understood which fees were optional and which were not," Darrah said. "I've been paying for things that I've never needed and never used."
Even when she began deciphering the mandatory fees from the optional costs, Darrah said, questions still remained in her mind about her bill.
"Take the parking fee for example," Darrah said. "Why do we need to pay two parking fees, one for registration and one for on-campus parking? Nobody ever tells us that. They just put it online and tell us we can pay it or not pay it. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I knew more about what I was paying or not paying for when I paid my bill."
Every semester, many PSUC students pay fees for services they never want and never use, a phenomenon PSUC Student Financial Services Director Todd Moravec openly acknowledges.
"I think most students know what they're doing when they pay their bill, but I also know there are some who just blindly pay all the charges," Moravec said. "I don't like hearing about this, because there's no point paying for anything you don't want or need, but there's nothing we can do about it."
A large sum of money was going toward funding her college education - that much she knew. Yet the PSUC sophomore also knew that a significant percentage of what she paid each semester had nothing to do with her college tuition. The money was going to the college, Darrah said, but she did not know why.
"So much of the bill is made up of all these fees," Darrah said, "but nobody ever really bothered to explain what the fees were. I was just blindly paying the money, but I didn't really even know if I had to pay some of the fees or why I was paying them. The money was going somewhere, but nobody ever explained where."
Annoyed by this lack of understanding, Darrah began to make it a point to learn what all of those little fees were for.
She even wrote an essay for one of her classes about paying money to the college without knowing why. The more she researched, the more she realized she was contributing money for fees she was not actually required to pay for.
"I never understood which fees were optional and which were not," Darrah said. "I've been paying for things that I've never needed and never used."
Even when she began deciphering the mandatory fees from the optional costs, Darrah said, questions still remained in her mind about her bill.
"Take the parking fee for example," Darrah said. "Why do we need to pay two parking fees, one for registration and one for on-campus parking? Nobody ever tells us that. They just put it online and tell us we can pay it or not pay it. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I knew more about what I was paying or not paying for when I paid my bill."
Every semester, many PSUC students pay fees for services they never want and never use, a phenomenon PSUC Student Financial Services Director Todd Moravec openly acknowledges.
"I think most students know what they're doing when they pay their bill, but I also know there are some who just blindly pay all the charges," Moravec said. "I don't like hearing about this, because there's no point paying for anything you don't want or need, but there's nothing we can do about it."
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