Here are some interesting amounts that I and my fellow graduate students face, at the beginning of every semester, at our university. If you take a look at our tuition and fee statement, it’s very plain and simple with just two entries and looks like this:
We get such a bill for 3 times a year: fall, spring and summer. The above amounts are for 9 credit hours that I took this spring. The summer tuition comes out to be slightly lesser because we are required to take just 6 credit hours instead of 9. The required fees are almost the same for all three semesters (only slightly less in summer). Also, note that it’s a public university, ranking among the best in the country for most areas of study.
The current annual amounts for graduate studies in this university look like this:
Tuition: $4236.30 * 2 (fall + spring) + $4236.30 *(6/9) (summer) = $11,296.80
Required fees: $908.97*3 = $ 2726.91
Total = $ 14,023.71
I work for the university as a research assistant (sometimes as teaching assistant), and that takes care of my tuition (just the tuition, not the required fees)…but I do get a bill for the full tuition due. If I have a research or teaching assistantship, my department pays that bill for me. But, that’s beside the point of this post. Back to the cost of education…
That entry in the fee statement “Fees required of all students” is a blackbox with a lot of charges. Here is what comes under that category per semester, rounded to nearest whole number (annual amounts are in brackets):
- Advising fee: $80 ($240)
- Bursar fee: $5 ($15)
- Computer Access fee: $170 ($510)
- Energy fee: $99 ($297)
- Medical Services: $60 ($180)
- ID card: $3 ($9)
- Library: $197 ($591)
- Software licensing: $11 ($33)
- Sports center: $98 ($294)
- Student services fees: $126 ($378)
- Transportation fees: $60 ($180)
I can understand some of the fees, but others are just ridiculous. In my case, the major wastage occurs with the “advising fee” (I still don’t know what are these for), “student services fees” (again, no idea), transportation fees (I live very close to campus), medical services (haven’t used the facility even once since I started grad school). Also, library access ($591) and computer access ($510) are really very steep. Also, none of these fees are optional.
If you add housing and boarding expenses to the above numbers, the total annual expenditure will be in the range of $20,000 ~ $25,000, depending on your style of living (spending).
So there you go..that’s what most grad students will be paying for their education. I am also almost sure that the above numbers are on the lower end of the spectrum as compared to the rest of the country….and I am not even talking about private schools here. There are ways to reduce this burden considerably, but that is a subject for another post.
Btw, when I joined grad school a few years ago, the annual expenses were in the range of $15,000~18,000…and have never stopped rising since then.
Some finer points: I have just mentioned the “nonresident” tuition in above numbers. “nonresident” meaning your hometown and your university are not in the same state. Most grads will choose schools according to their interests..(not just because it’s close to their home), so they may end up as nonresident students in other states. These nonresident numbers will also apply for international students….and there a lot of international graduate students in this country. For resident students, the annual tuition and fees expenses at our school are about $10,000 instead of $14,000. For undergrads, the numbers are slightly higher because most of them enroll for a lot more credit hours per semester than grad students.
Care to share what the cost of your education is (or was) ?
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My wife and I are doing some post-grad courses (by distance education) at the moment here in Australia.
For the Masters in IT I’m currently paying AUD$806 per subject (HECS fee). Normal F/T load is 8 subjects a year = AUD$6,448. And the total course is 16 subjects (AUD$12,896). But as I’m doing it P/T I only do 2-4 subjects a year.
For the Graduate Diploma in Education I’ve recently started, the fee is AUD$400 HECS fee per subject. The course comprises 8 subjects, so the total cost will be AUD$3,200.
My wife is doing a Masters in Finance, and pays AUD$1,500 HECS fee per subject. The total course is 12 subjects (AUD$18,000).
As you can see, the HECS (Higher Education Contribution) fees (applicable to Australian residents) are a lot less than the US tuition fees, as they are only around 25-50% of the real “cost” of the course (nearly all unis is Australia are publicly funded, so the Federal Gov. pays most of the cost). The fees also vary with how costly the course is to run (ie. Science is more expensive than Education), and also seems to vary depending on how “commercial” the course is ie. post-grad teaching courses are quite cheap (as they are short of teachers), and my IT degree is cheaper than the wife’s Finance degree.
I was lucky to get full scholarship to university.
But, I was going to grad school to specialize in aerospace in the US as an International student. That alone, caused quite a bit of tuition fees hike.
I just couldn’t live another day broke…..
Enough Wealth: Wow, subsidized education rocks ! :).
Usually, anything to do with finance or any other business related field is always expensive..it’s the same here. However, unlike in Australia, in my school, all courses (except business) have the same fee structure. So 9 credits in science will cost the same as 9 credits in education. There are different overheads, but they hardly make any difference.
Looking back, sometimes I feel I should have looked at other countries for higher education before jumpin here.
Sharon: You are an aerospace grad ?! That’s awesome. So you are into Canadarm or something?
But generally, there is lot of funding in Aerospace Engineering, right?
@ scholarship: someone funding your education is always nice
@ International students: there are also some stupid special fees like “international student fee” for them, in our university!
Yeah, international students have to pay quite a bit
I went to a public school too. In our school, if an international student did not have any assistantships, then he/she would have to pay the full non-resident tuition + fees. If the international student had an assistanthip, he/she paid the resident tuition + fees. Very few students qualified for scholarships that offered full waivers. The non-resident tuition was around $463 per credit hour and the resident tuition was $187 per credit hour. So, unless you were at the very top, and qualified for a shcolarship, you always had to pay ~$2500 per semester for tuition+ fees, inspite of an assistantship 
About international fees: $46 every semester + a one time $35 for new students.
Boy, am I glad I have graduated
My tuition at a state school started out cheap and slowly increased to the point where I had to get out. First semester was $956 for 6+units. This included my free bus pass and all the other crappy fees such as “student services” or “student government” fees. We paid like 50 dollars to the student government because they get paid! isnt that ridiculous? and all they do is have “meetings” and eat free food!
my last semester tuition was $1300 for less than 6 units!
I’m going to a private university (part-time) and my tuition is more, but fees are a lot less. It sounds like mostly everyone aboe is talking about pay per credit. If I go above 2 courses, I automatically get charged the full semester tuition (whether it’s one more class or 2), and all of the fees ($650 per credit, 4 credits a course and a $40 per semester registration fee; full-time is $16,655 plus $209 fees). Medical insurance is usually added also, but of course that is high (around $2500 a year). Since I need to have 64 credits to graduate, it’s going to cost me at least $40,000.
One reason public schools are charging so many fees is because they don’t want to look bad by increasing tuition, and/or the state doesn’t want to raise taxes to fund the education. Local governments do the same thing, added fees for sports programs, etc. instead of increasing taxes. It sometimes makes it more fare since only the people using the service pay.
$6000 for me per year I believe. in the mid-1980’s! University tuition for an out of state foreign student.
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