Long list of fees at UNLV needs some explaining
Classes cost $171 per credit at UNLV. So a full-time student taking 15 credits pays $2,565 per semester.
Not a bad deal.
Except there is also a systemwide surcharge, plus the new student fee and the student services fee and the student government fee. There are the technology fee and the iNtegrate fee and the study abroad fee. The Rebel recycling fee, the student health fee, the student life facilities fee.
So that $5,130 annual bill has suddenly ballooned to $6,457 for undergraduates. Graduate students pay even more. Plus, there are sometimes special course fees that can top $400 for some science classes.
None of that includes books.
University officials said they’re trying to be more accountable with the way fees are structured, though they acknowledge the structure can be confusing.
"At the end of the day, this is the most fair," President Neal Smatresk said. "I won’t say it the easiest to understand."
By keeping each fee separate, he said, students can find out more easily where their money goes.
He acknowledged that as state support for higher education has dwindled in recent years, student fees are becoming more important to help pay for classes. That trend is expected to continue.
In the end, what that means is the students who are using a particular service are the ones paying for that service. That is especially true when it comes to course fees.
An introductory English course, for example, has no extra fee, while a a senior-level microbiology lab has a $400 fee attached.
Overall, UNLV’s tuition and fees are still lower than the region average, according to data from the College Board.
Juanita Fain, the vice president for student affairs, said fees are based on the cost of what they’re used to pay for. And no fee gets implemented without the approval of a committee that includes students.
"We want to be as transparent as possible about where fees are going," she said.
In that vein, the university was asked to explain every fee that undergraduate students have to pay. (See box below.) There is no one place on the university’s website where they’re all explained.
Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.
