Florida International University Overcharging Graduate Students

<p>Hi everybody! This post is intended as advice to anyone planning to attend FIU as a graduate student. I am a grad alum, having received a masters in education in 1999. I returned in 2012 to attend a masters program in Speech Language Pathology (SLP) under the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Regular grad tuition was $422.16 per credit. Well they charged that, plus a fee of $230 per credit (=$690 per course, = $13,800 over the program). I asked questions and FIU admin could not show proof the "fee" had ever been approved by FIU Board of Trustees (BOT) or FL Board of Governors (BOG), both a requirement when nonstandard tuition or fees are charged. Other programs in the college were charging up to $40,000 above standard grad tuition, and I was never shown proof that those charges were legal either. In the SLP program, the $230 per credit fee was implemented by an administrator in 2005 using a continuing education regulation (contin. ed is administered on the university level, so ostensibly to hide it from the BOG). The SLP program is not, and never was a contin. ed program. It is a regular graduate (masters) program. When FIU failed to provide adequate answers, I submitted my complaint to the Board of Governors. They made all these charges legal as of June 2013, by itemizing the programs in document FIU 1101. The BOG thanked me for bringing it to their attention, but didn't acknowledge my request for compensation. I assume that's the option they had to take, otherwise students would question the lowering of tuition, or if wrongdoing was indicated, FIU would be on the hook to reimburse a whole lot of current and former students a whole lot of money! For more info., please visit whncht.wordpress.com</p>