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| The Basics | Don't let college fees eat you alive
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Colleges have found it lucrative to charge students stiff fees for just about everything. Watch out for these drains on your budget.
By Bankrate.com
You think college tuition costs are high? Many schools have come up with some new ways to empty your wallet and fill their coffers -- by imposing fees.
Drop a course a day late, register 10 minutes after the deadline or park in the wrong place on campus, and you could be hit with hefty fines that can add hundreds, and sometimes thousands, to your annual bill. Many students are totally unaware of the rules, deadlines and policies that trigger these fees.
Sometimes, fee notification comes via an e-mail that goes awry in an ancient college system or snail mail that ends up at a summer address. Within weeks, a little fee snowballs into a financial mess.
"It's hard to tell a freshman that you need to pay attention to these things," says Gary Carpenter, executive director of the National Institute of Certified College Planners. "But you need to make sure you're on top of these fees. It's a profit center for them."
Carpenter says schools use fees to avoid raising tuition. Padding from fees can keep blanket tuition hikes down, and so the careless subsidize the careful.
If you're starting school, or if your kid is, get a copy of the university calendar and read that thing like it contains the secret to eternal health.
Read your bill carefully
One way to avoid major fees is to check your university bill for errors, says Carpenter.
"When you get to school, the first thing you do is go to the financial aid office and make sure your aid is right," he says.
Every year, for example, he sees families paying $400 to $500 for health insurance that they already have through an employer.
"If the family doesn't submit proof of insurance, there's a double fee. Sometimes families have so much sticker shock over the total price tag, they don't even notice the $400."
Registration disasters
Apart from a financial-aid error, the priciest mistakes you can make at most schools are registering too late or forgetting to choose your classes until the semester actually starts.
In addition to missing out on the courses you like, you can be slammed with fees that range from a slap on the hand to several hundred dollars.
The University of Chicago bills a $250 "continuous registration penalty fee" for students who haven't paid five weeks into the semester. Its other late fees range from $50 to $200.
At Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, you will be billed $25 per day for "late submission of forms and documents," according to the school registrar's site.
And if you don't drop a class in time, you can be billed for the entire course. At the University of Iowa, just a week of delay can mean a bill of several thousand dollars -- for a course you didn't stay in.
The only way out is to be vigilant about deadlines. Then, check your registration records and university bill against each other and make sure they match.
Protest any financial errors
If you get hit with fees that are not your fault, protest.
"The computers here botched one of my registrations last year for winter quarter. For some reason they had no record of it," says John Curry, a Ph.D. candidate in Middle Eastern history at Ohio State.
"I did not find out until four weeks into the quarter that I was not registered," Curry says, "and only because I received no paycheck or insurance coverage for one of my dental claims.
"Needless to say, my wife and I were in horrible shape for the rest of the quarter, and to boot, the university tried to charge me $800 for a late registration."
Curry tried protesting but got nowhere at first.
"Only after multiple appeals to the dean and my advisors did I finally have this exorbitant sum refunded to me -- two months later."
Curry says that the larger context of these fees is that they can be the last straw for students struggling to get through school.
Other students say personal letters can reverse fees, but that getting a refund requires patience, perseverance and documentation.
You can also join other students in campaigning against rising fees.
"We've been successful in delaying or avoiding fees through direct action," says Rob Russell, a graduate student in geography at the University of Iowa. "Talk to deans and other decision-makers on campus and make your voice heard."
Paying slowly will cost you
The price for paying your tuition late, for any reason, can be steep. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a late payment charge of 1.75% is calculated on the outstanding balance.
"This charge is added each month to a delinquent account," according to the UIUC Web site. After three months of delinquency, the university will bill you a "collections fee" of $20 a month until the bill is paid.
Interestingly, UIUC no longer mails students their bills. So if you don't peruse your online bill and the online guide to deadlines and fees, you could be hit hard.
Think installments are the way to go? Check the installment fee first. At the University of Illinois, it's 1.5% of your total.
Library fines
Generally, all forms of college lateness are expensive.
Forget the 10 cents a day and a stern look from the librarian of your local library back home. At many universities, one book returned late costs more than a delivered pizza.
At Ohio State University, Curry says he pays "$10 per recalled book per day," and because the notifications are only sent by the university's not-always-reliable e-mail system, he pays $10 to $40 a month.
Make sure your library notices are being sent to an e-mail address you actually check.
Of course, it could be worse. In some college towns, library fines at the local library can mean jail. In Iowa City, a graduate student in poetry made headlines when he went to jail for a $447 local library bill.
Parking fines add up
Watch out for increasingly arcane campus parking rules.
At many schools, parking violations are big business. In tiny college towns where the university is the only thing going on, parking fines can add generously to the village coffers. All this means you should be super-vigilant when parking at or near a university.
At the University of Iowa, parking in a student lot without a sticker will run you $15, three times as much as a parking violation in the rest of town.
Mind your margins
If you're hoping for a master's degree or a Ph.D., be sure to strictly adhere to the stylebook when submitting papers. Your margins must be exact. An eighth of an inch in extra white space can mean an extra semester's worth of fees.
Universities have strict formatting rules for the appearance of a master's thesis and a Ph.D. dissertation. If the rules say that the margins must be seven-eighths of an inch, and you turn in a thesis with one-inch margins, your graduation date can be delayed. And you'll pay for the delay.
Even if your computer says your margins are seven-eighths of an inch, it doesn't mean anything. What matters is if the person in charge of margins thinks they are. So it's worth a trip to the office in charge of thesis formatting to double-check before you turn your masterpiece in.
If your thesis margins are deemed incorrect, you can find yourself paying for an extra semester or you may be assessed some other fee for your lateness. And if your post-graduation job depends on a degree in hand, you're out of luck.
Special equipment? Borrow with care
When Sandy Chertok, a filmmaker in New York City, was an undergraduate, she borrowed a tripod from her university's film department.
"They claimed I lost the head of a tripod," Chertok says, "and billed me $120."
Chertok is sure she borrowed a tripod without a head, but because she didn't speak up when she checked it out, she had to pay up.
Cameras, recorders and other equipment that are not returned, or not returned in the condition you borrowed them, can cost you. So make sure that what you're borrowing is what you think you're borrowing, and be sure there's a written record of any problems you see right off the bat.
Lose it and pay more
At Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a lost student ID will run you $20. At Johns Hopkins, a lost key to a dorm room costs $75 of your hard-earned money.
And if what you lose is the desire to spend next year in school, that will cost you too. At Harvard's Kennedy School, the nonrefundable deferral fee is a cool $750.
Printing 101
The lower your tuition bill, the more likely you'll be asked to pay for extras, like printouts to the tune of 25 cents or even 50 cents a page. At community colleges, printouts tend to cost more than at private schools.
You can e-mail a document to yourself and print it out at home, possibly saving several dollars per document. Just make sure there isn't a fine associated with using e-mail for personal use.
Many schools and university libraries have small stickers attached to their computers that say checking personal e-mail is not allowed. If you're caught, expect to pay a fine.
-- By Aviya Kushner
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