<p>Just received the Aug 1 edition of Bottom Line Personal. There is a snipit from an article reported in the USA Today, citing research from the Cornell Higher Education Research Group. In it they say that over 140 Public Universities are charging more for math, science and business majors <a href="$50%20per%20credit%20more%20in%20some%20cases">b</a>** because they cost more to teach and because they can lead to higher paying jobs.
Amongst the schools on the list:
Rutgers
Iowa State
South Dakota State
U of Illinois
U Nebraska-Lincoln
U Tennessee-Knoxville</p>
<p>and some considering doing this include:</p>
<p>U of Florida
Fla State U
UMaryland- College Park
U Minnesota
U Buffalo
Stony Brook
Binghamton U
U Albany
U Cal- Berkeley
UCLA</p>
<p>Son’s school did this - no big deal to me. It’s basically marketing strategy for a product - you charge what the market will bear. In son’s major, it was a per-semester charge I think, not a per-credit charge. There were also lab fees.</p>
<p>True at University of Michigan as well. Makes sense since certain majors like engineering, for example, require a lot of sophisticated labs, equipment, and technology.</p>
<p>Not for all engineering majors though. Computer Science and IOE don’t have any “real” labs. Chemistry, Biology, and Physics should have just as many if not more labs than most engineering majors.</p>
<p>Not only cost driven but demand and resource driven. Some areas have been relatively underfunded for years and this is only way to catchup with declining state funding. Also students demand more expensive services like dedicated placeemnt and counseling offices.</p>
<p>Yet another reason for the computer science-interested student to take math as the primary major and CS has a concentration or dual-major. You can pay less tuition while, selected only the “relevant” CS courses and qualify for the same software jobs.</p>
<p>Yes, UVa just added extra “technology” fees for each undergrad engineering and nursing course. They already charge 4K more a year for the Commerce School.</p>
<p>U. Pittsburgh charges $4k more a year for nursing, plus extra for engineering. Penn State also charges more for some programs.</p>
<p>Yep. Son’s school does this too. I don’t know why schools do this. Would it really affect the bottom line in applications, admissions, and money intake to charge the same amount for those programs? It isn’t an issue with me or anyone else I know,</p>
<p>A lab fee or supply fee, yeah, I see a rationale, most of daughter’s art classes had a supply fee. But to charge more per credit hour, seems to me you’re locking the segment of population that can least afford college into low paying majors, which then makes them less likely to be able to earn salaries high enough to send their future children to college. I mean, most public universities don’t meet need as it is for low income students, so now they’ll be charged even more for the very majors that offer them a brighter future. Since COA is calculated on average costs, I doubt financial aid will increase to cover the extra charges. </p>
<p>And are they only paying the extra for the actual engineering or computer science classes or is it extra for all their classes, I mean, it’s not just engineers who take chemistry and physics. So is an engineering major paying more for the same class that a math major takes. </p>
<p>Seems we are very much determined to make this country a nation of haves and have nots, your parents can afford to pay the extra dollars for engineering, great, no, well too bad, but hey, always room for more workers at the local Walmart or Sonic. </p>
<p>Seems to me a fairer approach would be to average those extra costs across the board, thereby upping the COA, which in theory should increase FA, than to lock certain students out of those fields.</p>
<p>D1s school simply charges “course fees” for those that are more expensive to offer. Private school, so there’s a full time fee instead of a per credit hour charge.</p>
<p>The poor job prospects for biology majors does not seem to deter many students from majoring in biology (which is the most popular major at some schools). From a public university’s point of view, educating biology majors seems like a pretty low return on investment, since they are relatively expensive to teach (labs), but won’t contribute as much to the state economy or tax base as most other majors after they graduate (and most of the pre-med hopefuls get no medical school acceptances even if they do apply to medical schools).</p>
<p>Some schools charge more for upper division students, probably because upper division courses are more expensive (need more faculty since they are smaller).</p>
<p>My s’s school was a private school so also had a flat tuition fee, but we paid extra lab fees for his chem labs, not necessarily his engineering classes, IIRC.</p>
<p>That said, I understand that the engineering faculty get paid more.</p>
<p>The public university where I work charges higher tuition per credit hour for courses in the School of Nursing, the School of Business, and online courses.</p>
<p>I think some of it is supply and demand, especially since our state funding has been dropping.</p>