By now we all know how expensive college tuition is. In fact, college tuition continues to rise year by year, especially here at West Virginia University. Many students (or their parents) end up taking out loans, so if students can’t afford college up front, how do they expect students to pay for the additional costs that come with classes like books, scantrons, electronics, and projects?
“I believe that WVU is uniquely positioned to be a pioneer in regards to open educational resources [OER’s],” said Blake Humphrey, a sophomore political science major. “OER’s are high-quality, low cost forms of educational material that are being utilized at universities around the world. We can create a vibrant research and development community by continued support for open education.”
Not only is university tuition high, but most individual colleges at the university also charge an additional tuition. Take the Reed College of Media for example. Journalism students pay an additional $336 every semester, $12 more than 2014. So not only does tuition keep rising, but so are the fees within colleges.
“I honestly think it’s a little ridiculous,” said Megan Harp, a senior broadcast journalism major. “I pay a separate tuition to the journalism school every semester, so if the school can’t even provide me with what I need, why should I have to buy it myself? Especially when I may never use whatever it is they want me to buy ever again.”
Many students argue that scantrons should be free or be included with their books, depending on the class, not to mention the cost of printing too. Scantrons range from $0.25-$0.70, not including tax. Printing on campus costs $0.06 per black and white page, and $0.25 per colored page.
Could all these extra costs be the reason that students can’t afford an education or pay for the resources to guide them through school?
Morgantown Matters 
We pay so much money to be here, and we have to pay hundreds of dollars for textbooks, many of which we literally never have to crack open. If teachers are going to assign it, they better use it. It would be okay if I could sell it back for as much as I paid for it, but when you’re getting $12 back for a $100+ book, it’s seriously a rip-off. The other added costs you mention seem small, but they add up. Besides, the University can afford to not charge for printing or scantrons. Sometimes college students can’t afford a cup of coffee, but we have to find the money to print out a paper, which isn’t accepted digitally <— tell me how that makes sense. In this day and age, why is printing even necessary?
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I completely agree! Some of my classes actually require me to submit papers digitally, while a lot of general education classes make me print out long papers to hand in, which I never get back.. It’s more useful and cost efficient to own your own printer I think!
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Patrick,
This is such a big issue right now for not just WVU, but many colleges in general. I know for me personally, I cannot afford (and neither can my mother) to go to school and I have to take out loans. No shame in that whatsoever, it’s just the fact of the matter. Between tuition, books and various other fees that I pay to the university, it’s somewhat ridiculous. There is nothing more frustrating then paying an arm and a leg for books and never even cracking it open all semester or buying certain materials for class and never using them again. Granted, you can rent some materials and books out, but even renting is so expensive. The school of journalism used to give us money for printing also, which was convenient due to the amount of stuff we had to print, but they even did away with that. Just small things that you’ve addressed, that Ashley has addressed and that I’ve addressed add up to the cost and I feel it does contribute to why college is unaffordable for many students.
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I also agree with you! We buy these super expensive books for no reason, and then never open them. Let that be a lesson for everyone, to only buy the book if you desperately need it, otherwise there are cheaper ways to get through the class, such as borrowing the book, or having classmates copy it for you.
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Patrick the increased tuition is not going towards professor’s salaries, or the massive construction projects, or even to the updating of technology. What has increased exponentially in the past 20 years is the size of administration at institutions of high education. More specifically: recruitment, student services, and administrators to administrate the additionally administration. I really wonder if the Reed College of Media needs so many people working in the areas of recruitment and student services. It just seems that the increasing tuition has nothing to do with education and everything to do with feeding the growing monster of bloated staffs.
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I would have liked to see you try to delve into exactly why it is that everything’s so expensive and costs have continued to rise. This isn’t really a WVU-exclusive problem, it’s happening everywhere, and we all know it sucks. Where exactly are the rising costs of attending school going to?
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Honestly, AMEN. Tuition increases are outrageous, and the fact that we have sub-tuitions is even more absurd. We are required to purchase things we don’t need, such as I was told to buy a $150 external hard drive my sophomore year. I used it once, and even then I didn’t really need it that much. An online course I took required five, FIVE, text books. THAT IS NOT NECESSARY.
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Patrick,
It was a great idea to bring this issue to light. I think every student in the College of Media was upset by the removal of our printing stipend, especially since the college tuition continues to increase. It seems as if the higher our tuition goes, the more perks they take away from us. I would have liked to have read more about why these fees and our tuition continue to increase, and why they took the printing stipend away instead of lowering the amount, etc.
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