online tuition differential for grad students

Paying for College
1

Daughter in occupational therapy grad program. All OT programs in U.S. require hands-on learning, fieldwork, labs and practicals assessments in order to be eligible to take Board exam. Obviously Covid has wreaked havoc on all OT instruction delivery for hands-on training.

Due to the unexpected nature of the situation, I did not object to paying full-price tuition though all classes went online mid- March. All but 3 in the 40 person cohort have remained in the university town since everyone has a lease to fulfill, but they are remaining socially isolated in their respective apartments.

University announced in early April that all summer classes for entire university would be online. They acknowledged difficult financial situations due to Covid and thus undergrads who decide to take summer classes will pay in-state regular tuition, which is less than web rates, and out-of -state undergrads will pay only web rates, which are less than regular OOS tuition. In other words, Univ is discounting undergrad tuition this summer.

Grad students, who are required to take only online classes this summer, are being required to pay regular tuition, or double tuition if Out-of-State. Daughter is OOS. There is no option to delay her classes since all OT programs in US operate in a cohort model, with 6 to 8 straight-through semesters (each school determines their own course content/sequencing). The OOS web rate policy for undergrad will not apply to grad students , even though the school advertises grad school web rates. She is being billed for full in-person OOS prices for online classes, but without the benefit of in-person instruction, labs, etc.

I’ve been in touch with University Provost, who said Trustees passed this emergency policy because of the expense of grad programs compared to undergrad programs. Summer tuition is due soon, and I’m really having an issue paying full tuition for in-person instruction, knowing that the on-line education will continue to be diminished without the opportunity to be trained on specific in-person techniques demanded by the profession. It was always a stretch to pay for the OOS program, and especially now with the drop in investment value. Transfer to another program is not an option, due to the cohort model for this degree.

Anybody have any ideas of how I might proceed next to address this discriminatory tuition differential for OOS undergrad and grad students?

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I think your up against a timeline that puts you between a rock and hard place, as you say, you really can not transfer so your stuck, your gonna have to pay it, not fair but few things are with the times we live in, you could try the student newspaper or if it is public school that dept of education

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Your grad student is not being discriminated against. All the grad students are in the same financial boat.

Your grad school student should be the one advocating for this. She is viewed as independent in terms of the college (even if you are actually paying the bills).

Perhaps a student initiated complaint about this might be the way to go. Would other OOS students in her cohort be willing to band together with her and speak to someone…I’d start with the department chairperson and work up.

I know it sounds “unfair” to you…but this was a decision they made at the university level.

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I wasn’t saying that she is specifically being discriminated against. I’m saying that there is discrimination against out of state grad students versus out of state undergrads, and it was most definitely a differential decided by the university, in addition to the different policy for grad vs undergrad in general…

If she wasn’t currently every single week having 3 to 4 tests, writing 2 to 3 papers, and having to figure out how to endanger herself to do in-person assessments on someone even though she lives alone, plus normal class assignments, she would be advocating for herself.

Others in the class brought it up to admin higher than the dept chair, who is never very supportive of the students about anything, and were told “grad education costs more”, “services are being delivered” (though I would submit that they are inferior to the in-class services being paid for, and “it’s not online learning, its distance learning”

Basically, they are captive. As a cohort program, they can’t transfer. Undergrads can take the online money elsewhere and might like it enough not to return for more expensive in-person classes whenever schools get to resume.

I just think it is unethical to make financial discount allowances for some classifications of students but not for others.