Watch for distance learning fees that add to college costs

The end of this tumultuous year is fast approaching, which means college tuition payments and fees for the winter semester are coming due. The bottom line encompasses the meal plan, textbooks, lab fees, car registration — and quite possibly, something called a distance learning fee.

In case you overlooked that virtual learning charge when you wrote the big check in the summer — and many parents did miss it, judging by my email — the extra charge is back. That’s much to the chagrin of some families who feel the charge is an unnecessary case of schools piling on during these difficult times.

The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many schools to institute the fee to recoup costs associated with online education. The tab is generally around $50 per credit hour of online learning.

To be sure, colleges have significantly increased expenses for remote learning, including quarantine protocols, hiring contact tracers and webcams for faculty, plus computers and other peripheral technology for homebased learning. Some schools say they don’t have the funding or endowments large enough to cover all the educational costs tied to the remote classroom experience, so they are passing on their costs to students.

For example, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith added a distance learning fee during the fall and again for the upcoming second semester. The school explained the fee has long been in place for classes that are strictly online or a class that is face to face but also has online elements.

Students are being charged $50 for each credit hour that falls under this category. The money helps pay for software, security and salaries, the university said.

The university also said the fee will be waived if a professor moves an in-person class online after the semester has started or adds online elements.

Other schools have tacked on what they call COVID-19 “mitigation fees” to help defray the cost of adding plexiglass, health care personnel and testing students for the virus. At the University of Michigan, for example, students were charged $50 for health and safety.

And of course, the fallout from the pandemic has prompted lawsuits against a number of schools that opted earlier this year not to refund tuition for students who were getting online learning at face-to-face classroom prices. There has also been an increased number of financial aid appeals from families seeking more financial aid, double or triple at some colleges, according to SavingforCollege.com.

Some colleges have not charged extra even though they had to rent hotel rooms to give every student a single. MIT went one step further. It gave all students special $5,000 COVID-19 grants to cover distance learning-related costs, covering everything from technology upgrades to off-campus apartment rent.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic, many schools, especially public universities, are dealing with tuition freezes, budget shortfalls and major cost-cutting.

These tuition freezes, however, may be short-lived once the pandemic gets under control and the economy strengthens, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of SavingforCollege.com. At some point, expect to see tuition increase as schools scramble to recover.

As for pandemic-related fees, it will likely be spring before schools reveal their financial game plan.