Omaha World-Herald, NE
08-22-07
U leaders favor uniform tuition
BY MATTHEW HANSEN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
The cost of classes isn't created equal at the University of Nebraska.
An engineering student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln or the University of
Nebraska at Omaha pays an extra $360 in fees if enrolled in nine credit hours of
engineering courses.
A University of Nebraska at Omaha student taking organic chemistry is charged
$68 for a lab fee. And that oh-so-tempting golf instruction class at UNL? That'll be
$75 extra, please.
The fees, which are above and beyond tuition, help pay for expensive equipment
and materials not used in every college course, said University of Nebraska
President J.B. Milliken.
In some cases, the fees help offset the cost of higher-than-average faculty
salaries, as in the engineering school, said UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman.
University leaders nationwide offer similar explanations to justify charging higher
tuition for certain popular majors and departments. Some say that practice
violates the traditional higher education notion that a philosophy student and a
biology student at the same school should pay the same price.
"I can't deny that that's where it seems higher education is moving," Perlman said
of tuition increases for certain majors. "I don't agree with it."
NU leaders say they have no plans to boost tuition $500 for business majors, as
the University of Wisconsin-Madison did this fall. Nor will they charge journalism
students an extra $250 per semester in tuition, which Arizona State University
does.
Although tuition is uniform for NU undergraduate classes, the mandatory fees
charged for a hard science course, for example, make it more expensive than an
English course.
The higher cost is most striking for UNL and UNO engineering students, who pay
a $40-per-credit hour fee. But that doesn't come close to Iowa State
University's plan to increase engineering students' tuition by $1,500 over a
three-year period.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Mark Kushner, dean of ISU's
College of Engineering, blamed the engineering tuition increase on a decrease in
state aid to public higher education. State aid used to keep tuition low across the
board at public universities, he said.
"That was based on the premise that the education of an individual is a public
good, that individuals go out and become schoolteachers and businessmen and
doctors and lawyers, that makes society better," Kushner said. "That's no longer
the perception."
Instead, many now view an undergraduate education as a private good, a way to
get a diploma and make more money.
The resulting conclusion — that an undergraduate degree in biochemistry should
cost more than a philosophy degree — shouldn't be accepted as fact, Milliken
said.
"As a general matter, it makes sense to have uniform tuition levels," he said. "It
helps ensure you aren't restricting access to those areas which are more costly."
Perlman and UNO Chancellor John Christensen worry that tuition increases just
for science classes, for example, might keep poorer students from enrolling in
those courses.
It might prevent even middle-class students from getting a well-rounded
education at a university — precisely the reason that metropolitan universities
were created, Christensen said.
"Part of being an undergraduate is finding an area of study you are passionate
about," Perlman said. "Not just one you can afford."
Milliken said NU has no immediate plans to raise or lower tuition for certain
majors or classes, although small fee increases may be necessary in the coming
years.
But the debate about what is called "differentiated tuition" isn't going away.
"I think that it's clear that higher education institutions need to be more
entrepreneurial, need to be thinking about responding to a market very different
than existed a generation ago," Milliken said.
"We'll certainly have these discussions about how we price tuition and what our
strategy ought to be."