KSU students to pay highest premium

By Carol Biliczky

Akron Beacon Journal

Kent

Kent State undergraduates will pay the highest premium in the state for credit hours beyond what the university deems as a full-time load.

No other tax-supported university charges anything approaching the $440 per credit hour that KSU will impose this fall for students on the main campus who take an overload of credit hours.

This is the “new normal,” university Provost Todd Diacon told the Kent State student media Kentwired this week. “The state is not going to bear the cost of higher education but the users are. And you are the users,” Diacon said.

KSU trustees in March approved an overload fee of $440 for more than 17 credit hours next year and for more than 16 credit hours in 2013-14.

The new fee set off a storm of complaints from students who see it as an “ambition penalty” for trying to get through college quickly or for pursuing double majors that require more credit hours. Various protests have been staged around campus. An online Facebook petition has more than 3,700 signatures. More than 500 students attended a protest on campus Thursday.

Iris Harvey, vice president of university relations, told student media this week the surcharge is a way to keep “high-quality facilities for students.”

KSU officials are poised to refresh the Kent campus with new buildings and updates of current ones. Trustees have agreed to borrow $170 million. In KSU’s last big expansion in the 1960s, the state paid for virtually all of the cost of 60 new buildings, Diacon told the Beacon Journal Thursday. This time around, the state will pay only 10 percent of the tab; the rest will come from the university’s funding sources.

Last fall, 2,849 undergraduates on the Kent campus — 12.6 percent of students — took more than 17 hours, the university said.

Most other tax-supported universities in Ohio already do what Kent State wants to do. Most universities define a full-time load as 12 to 16 credit hours, while KSU and Ohio University say a full-time course load begins at 11 credit hours. Other tax-supported universities charge overload rates between $154 at Ohio University to $373 at Cleveland State. The University of Akron charges $333; Bowling Green, $200.

Three state universities still have no ceiling on credit-hour loads. Students enrolled at Ohio State, Cincinnati and Miami can take as many classes as they want without paying a surcharge.