Snoop Dogg said it best back in ‘92, “everybody got they cups but they ain’t chipped in.”
The people with their cups not chipping in are dual enrollments students, students in high school that are taking college level courses at a university or college. They are exempted from paying tuition or any associated fee, and those fees are then waived at the university or college they attend.
The waiver was implemented by the Board of Governors regulation and Florida statutes, both make the cost of taking college courses free for high school students who take dual enrollment courses in any higher education institution in Florida Colleges or State University system. This is nothing new.
Before this is misconstrued, dual enrollment students are charged tuition and fees, but the waiver needs to be applied so the students are not held financially responsible – a technicality.
And to clarify, non-dual enrollment students are allowed to register for courses first, before dual enrollment students. However, allowing dual enrollment students to take free college courses at a university, as a result of their “exempt” status, is a disservice to the full-time students.
In the past the amount of money waived from dual enrollment students’ fees was taken from the education and general trust fund, money generated through tuition and state funds. Now the plan is to take the waiver amount, or the total of what would have come from dual enrollment students, from the student fees – activity and service, health, and athletics.
Just to put it into perspective, imagine someone going to a party where everyone is required to chip in for food, beverages and snacks. Now, for some reason, a kid is allowed to go to the party, without chipping in for anything, gets to benefit from the festivities and it is totally fine with the host. This is an issue.
It is already a burden for students to pay tuition – not to mention that the state is currently looking at a 6 percent increase – but now the full responsibility falls on University students to pay for high schoolers to take the same classes and attend the same student-fee supported events. Not only are students paying for it, it is coming out of a fee that may or may not benefit dual enrollment students.
We’re told separate pieces of information: these students do and do not attend the University’s events or participate in on-campus clubs or organizations, from a University administrator and student government president, respectively.
Unfortunately, this does not change the fact that there is 7 percent less activity and service money to go around to the University’s student organizations because the dual enrollment waiver is being applied differently.
And why exactly is the University applying the waiver differently? As of press time, Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Jessell still has not answered that question.
If dual enrollment students are to attend the University, they should be charged student fees like every other Panther. If not that, then someone – either from the legislature or the University – needs to make sure only non-dual enrollment students take advantage of what the student fees provide. Just because these high school students are not paying for tuition doesn’t mean that the problem goes away.
At the end of the day, the question is whether or not these students are bringing anything to FIU.
They could possibly be future students. They could recommend the University to their friends. They could be in the mindset of being “Worlds Ahead” for all we know – but we don’t. It’s a maybe game. It’s a gamble.
A gamble that current students should not have to pay for.
