PSU – especially expensive for part-time students

According to Jennifer Anderson’s article in Tuesday’s Tribune, Portland State University (PSU) has a total enrollment of 24,284 – 18,012 undergraduates, 6,272 graduate students. Of these students, 56% attend full time, 44% part time.

Our daughter Ali isn’t counted as one of the 6735 part-time undergraduates enrolled at the University, although she’s taken a class there this summer. Students may take up to eight credits in regular terms, or 21 credits over the summer, without being formally admitted to Portland State. Today is the last class for the three-credit, 200-level acting course Ali’s been taking between her junior and senior high school years. She’s found it interesting, the credits can be applied towards her degree when she moves on to college, and it counts for high school elective credit for the Performing Arts and 21st Century Honors awards at Wilson.

The one sour note? Health care costs. Non-admitted part-time and full-time students at PSU pay $90 per term for health care coverage, whether they take one credit or 21 – even though non-admitted students aren’t eligible for health care benefits through PSU. Tuition for Ali’s class was a relatively reasonable $288, but with the health care and other fees, we paid $468.50 for her three credits. When I called to question whether the health care fee can be waived for minors covered by their parents’ insurance, I was told “No, because we’re a State institution and your fees go to help cover uninsured health care provided throughout the state”. I would rather have heard “No, excess goes to help support the rest of the higher education budget”. College tuition and fees should pay for college, not uninsured health care.

In contrast, when Ali took a similar 3-credit acting class at Portland Community College (PCC) last summer, it cost us around $200. Checking PCC’s current costs, tuition for three credits is $204, Student activity fee $4.65, technology fee $13.50, total $222.15.

Of course, even at $468.50, Ali’s three credits cost us less than if she were earning them while living away from home and being charged room and board. A semester for an Oregon resident taking the standard course load of 15 credits at a state university, including room/board expenses, costs a little over $5,000. That’s about $1,000 for three credits.

PSU’s tuition and fees are set by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. They’re similar to costs per credit hour and mandatory fees at Western Oregon University, where our son Luke will be a senior next year. I’m pleased to see a change in the State University fee structure for fall 2007, when part-time students taking fewer than 8 credits won’t be assessed a health care fee. But beware – taking 9 credits kicks a part-time student into a mandatory $142 per session health care fee, regardless of whether the student already has insurance coverage. Worth reading the fine print.

These numbers help explain the trend I’ve noticed over four years of reading about the college destinations of graduating seniors at Wilson High School. Many more now choose to attend community college for basic college courses. Some then transfer to graduate from the more expensive state universities after two years. Taking a few credits per semester at PSU isn’t nearly as cost-effective.