Spending money to make money

Should an undergraduate studying business pay more than one studying psychology? Should an allied health degree cost more than one in biology? Some colleges and universities have started charging different undergraduate tuition rates depending on what a student decides to major in to deal with budget cuts. UW-La Crosse does something similar, charging certain allied health fields an additional 20 percent to their base tuition, while other classes have special course fees. But is this really fair?

Such price hikes are antithetical to the traditional mission of public schools, including the UW System's own mission of "providing methods of instruction, research, extended education and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition." Public universities strive to offer a quality education for those who can't afford or don't want to pay private schools' large tuition bills. Could charging extra tuition discourage students from trying courses in more "expensive" areas? Could students from less affluent families be discouraged from going into fields that would allow them access to higher paying jobs? This in turn may enable the kind of socioeconomic stratification that colleges should be trying to undo.

I'll acknowledge that most of the charged majors require expensive technology, additional teaching resources, and even outside facilities. In fields such as nuclear medicine, radiation therapy, and clinical laboratory science that require hospital training as part of the major requirements, administration justifies these clinical charges as needed capitation fees. UW-L pays internship hospitals a base tuition to send their students there and sees this as an extra expense associated with students in these programs. Consequently, administration also looks to the students in these programs to cover them. But is that a legitimate reason to charge only certain students extra? Everyone is charged segregated fees, for example on the Childcare Center, even if they do not use the charged service. Why should classes be any different?

Additionally, students in these allied health degrees that cost more already pay more in most cases because required courses like chemistry have the special lab fee tacked on. Its unfortunate with the current economy that these price hikes are not matched with equally low interest financial assistance.  I, like I'm sure many of my fellow students, am responsible for paying for my entire college tuition. I work nearly forty hours a week to pay for school and I think that throwing an additional $3000 on top of it next year is unreal.

It seems differential tuition would work better at graduate levels, rather than for undergraduate studies because the education is more specialized and curriculum is more focused. Undergraduate programs are too broad for this to be fairly applied. For example, nearly 50 percent of my NMT major is composed of liberal arts and general education classes (English, math, social sciences, foreign language). I'm sure the extra earned money isn't going towards all departments. Should one department be able to reap the benefits from charging a few students extra?

All of us are students. It is clear that we have different interests and talents.  That's why we specialize when choosing majors. We pursue something that we are interested in. Perhaps art is your specialty. Maybe you want to become an elementary teacher. Who is to say that a degree in business is worth more than a degree in industrial hygiene?