2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Equality of access to college gets a lot of attention. The focuses of these efforts are often the convoluted and/or secretive admissions processes at elite schools and overall college affordability. What has not been discussed in detail is how increasingly complicated tuition and fee structures among universities are making various degrees more expensive and are also effectively resulting in charges of different tuition rates to students earning the same degree. These tuition fee structures especially impact engineering students and work against efforts to provide targeted financial aid support.

Engineering degree programs tend to require more credits (typically 5-25 more semester credits) than other programs at universities. They also tend to have little if any free elective requirements built in that allow earned credits that do not match up to specific degree requirement to be used. This is in addition to the effects of prerequisite requirements within engineering curricula. The result is that most engineering students take longer than 4 years to complete the program and have more credits (including some that are unused) when they graduate. This has an impact on the cost of the degree. Even without the increasingly popular policy to have tuition rates that differ between different programs of study, engineering degrees tend to need more credits and students take longer to complete them, thereby paying tuition for additional terms.

In the State of Michigan, it is common for universities to differentiate their tuition based on whether a student is in the upper division or lower division. While the definition of upper and lower division varies among institutions, typically a student is considered in the lower division if they have 59 or fewer earned credits (120 semester credits being the minimum for a bachelor’s degree). Since the number of credits charged at the lower division rate is capped at 59, all unused credits or additional requirements for a degree result in charges at the higher upper division rate.

This paper investigates whether this tuition structure adversely affects different groups of students. Students who change their majors and/or transfer in credits that do not satisfy graduation requirement tend to have unused or wasted credits when they graduate. Student data from University was examined to compare the distribution of credits earned by graduation for different groups of students who graduated with a degree. Comparisons are presented based on Pell Grant eligibility, gender, race, degree earned, and transfer status. These comparisons focus on the number of credits earned by the time of graduation. These comparisons are then used to show if there was a significant difference in the amount of tuition charged to the compared groups due to the higher rate charged to students in the upper division.