Oregon State Considers Raising Tuition as Classes Go Online
“The taxpayer-funded institution’s Board of Trustees is raising tuition on incoming undergraduates by 3.2 percent as a purported compromise”
So the students are going to get a less dynamic experience but the school wants them to pay more?
The College Fix reports:
Oregon State rewards incoming students with higher tuition for worse experience under COVID-19 restrictions
You’d think public universities would appreciate the fact that mandatory online classes during the COVID-19 outbreak are less valuable than in-person learning, where they can build professional connections and take advantage of networking opportunities.
Oregon State University does not appreciate that fact.
The taxpayer-funded institution’s Board of Trustees is raising tuition on incoming undergraduates by 3.2 percent as a purported compromise, The Daily Barometer reports. Trustees considered three options at a Friday teleconference:
Scenario A would increase costs for all continuing and new students, 3.2% for residents and 3.2% for non-residents. Under Scenario B, there would be no increase for continuing undergraduate students, yet new undergraduates—residents and non-residents—would see a 3.2% increase. Scenario C suggested no increase for all resident students, and a 3.2% increase for all non-resident students.
Sherm Bloomer, associate vice president of budget and resource planning, sold the board a glass-half-empty story about the selective tuition increase, portraying OSU as noble toward current students burdened by coronavirus:
“Adding a tuition increase for those continuing students could communicate to them that we don’t recognize that changed experience—that we don’t recognize the challenges that they face—and could cause some of them to choose not to come back to OSU,” Bloomer said. “Those continuing students have fewer options than a new student does, because they already made an investment in OSU—they’ve committed time, they’ve committed resources, they’ve committed energy in making progress toward their degree.”
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Comments
Less dynamic experience? Less annoying, I would say.
In any case, raising tuition for a simpler, more streamlined, less expensive delivery option is exactly what I would expect from modern “education.”
Considering the deceased expenses on campus there should actually be a cut in tuition
Let me make sure I understand this. Lower infrastructure costs (maintenance, heating, cooling, water, sewage, etc.) in the buildings (classrooms, dorms, cafeterias, administrative buildings, etc.), because there will be drastically fewer people on campus. Less need for campus cops for the same reason. All around, fewer expenses to the college, but the tuition just has to go up?
No where in this write-up or in the linked story is there an explanation for why the tuition hike was needed in the first place. Or is this nothing but an excuse to replace the ‘student activity fees’ previously extorted from students?
Do you really think they are decreasing the number of campus cops? The cops at the university where I am a graduate student don’t seem to be reducing in number despite the fact that the campus is closed to all but “essential” personnel (I have to go on campus to feed animals which are being used in my group’s studies).
Not at all. But do they really need a full shift of campus cops 24×7? I submit they could cut those costs, but they are maybe constrained by contract.
No, but do they really need to run a full shift 24×7?