At some UW schools, online classes come with extra fees even when in-person option isn’t offered | Journal Sentinel

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, incoming freshmen pay a $305 new student fee. 

At UW-Milwaukee, graduating seniors pay a $40 degree processing fee. 

And at UW-Green Bay, students pay an additional $25 per credit to take an online course, even when no face-to-face option is offered. 

Across higher education, fees can seem as frequent as Friday night parties. From course registration to placement exams to student-athlete participation, universities are tacking on charges that raise additional revenue in a budget landscape with limited options. But what may seem minor to the bursar’s office can strain students’ budgets. 

UW-Green Bay junior John Reinke paid an extra $300 in fees this semester for four online courses, all of which he said were required for his psychology major and none of which offered an in-person option to avoid the fees. 

“Tuition is high enough on its own — adding online course fees on top of it, for courses that are mandatory, creates a two-tiered pricing system within the same education,” Reinke wrote in a online petition signed by more than 600 others. “It’s hard not to feel like we’re being charged extra just for trying to graduate.” 

UW System charged at least $16 million in online fees 

Reinke, a full-time student, said he works two jobs and took on federal student loans to afford going to college. He was surprised to see an extra $300 on his latest bill and took awhile to understand the charges were for online classes. 

UW-Green Bay explains on its tuition website that additional fees, such as online course fees, may drive up the price. Another university website explains online course fees cover costs such as instructional design, instructor training, online software and technology support for students. 

Reinke questioned the extent to which fees cover software. He said the only technology used in his online classes was Canvas, a platform students taking in-person classes also use. He’s heard from friends majoring in other academic programs where mandatory courses were also only offered online. 

“It seems like an in-person class would be cheaper,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “So why not just offer this as an in-person class?” 

UW-Green Bay referred comment about its online course fees to the UW System, which did not offer an explanation for why a particular course would only be offered online. Sometimes called “distance education fees,” the charges began in the 1990s and are typically identified on websites, in course catalogs and on tuition bills, UW System spokesperson Mark Pitsch said. 

In the 2024 fiscal year, the UW System received at least $16 million in online education fees, with UW-Milwaukee netting the most at $5.1 million. UW-Whitewater, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Green Bay each received more than $2 million. Six institutions earned less than a million. UW-Madison and UW-Stout do not collect online course fees. 

The UW System would like to phase out online course fees, but there are no formal proposals or plans to do so and ongoing funding challenges would take priority, Pitsch said. 

Robert Kelchen, a higher education professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who has studied college fees, said institutions rarely eliminate fees. They also face far less public outcry when introducing or increasing fees compared to raising tuition rates, leading to a trend where fees have generally risen faster than tuition over the past two decades. 

Fees come amid tight financial landscape for University of Wisconsin campuses 

Public universities in Wisconsin are facing increasing financial pressure. The state share of its revenues has shrunk over the past 40 years, and its federal revenue is also facing cuts under the Trump administration. This comes in addition to an in-state student tuition freeze that was in place from 2013 through 2023. 

Among the most common fees Kelchen has seen are related to commencement, athletics programs, lab courses and fully online programs. Colleges charging fees for individual online courses were a relatively new concept. 

“These one-time, add-on fees usually aren’t as closely watched,” Kelchen said. “But the money to do these things (such as orientation, commencement and online course development) has to come from somewhere.” 

Colleges that charge many different fees can complicate their billing process, he said. But fees can also even out the financial burden students bear. Without program-specific fees, students studying less expensive majors end up subsidizing pricier programs. 

Colleges “are not trying to increase student charges willy-nilly, because they know students are price sensitive,” Kelchen said. “But at the end of the day, it’s typically easier to increase fees than increase tuition because there tends to be less regulation from the system or state, and you can point to a particular reason why that fee is in place.”

Source: At some UW schools, online classes come with extra fees even when in-person option isn’t offered