David Giglio, Comm ’09, recently discovered a major discrepancy in fees when signing up for an arts and science course.
Commerce students are required to take a certain number of elective credits in arts and science. As Giglio learned, an arts and science student can expect to pay $517.63 in course fees for a half-credit arts and science course; however, the same course requires commerce students to shell out $1,019.93. In order to raise awareness about what he perceived to be a major inequality, Giglio started a petition and received over 200 signatures on his first day. Peter Kissick, director of the commerce program explained, “the fees commerce students pay are for the whole program—and the whole experience of being a commerce student—not just individual courses.”
Evidently, extra funds are required of business students to cover the costs of certain amenities afforded to them as members of the commerce faculty; however, these costs should be part of their student fees rather than added to the price of arts and science courses. The current system is confusing and only perpetuates the stratified culture among students in different fields of the University. Even simply from an optical perspective, having commerce students pay twice as much as arts and science students for the same course encourages the culture of elitism which already exists.
Giglio’s campaign illustrates why the University needs to be more transparent with how they allocate tuition money .Students should know where and how their tuition dollars are being spent.
There’s currently a disconnect between what students in each faculty are charged in tuition and where the money is going in their faculty. This points to hidden fees and the lack of University accountability.
Although commerce students should be paying more to enjoy the benefits their program provides, the funding should be laid out in a way that makes sense. Every student deserves the right to know what they are paying for and where their money is going.
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