Eliminating course, program fees saves CU $150K in annual labor costs

The elimination of course and program fees at the University of Colorado is one link in a years-long chain of events focused on financial efficiency at CU, university officials said Monday.

The slashing of more than 60 fees tied to funding resources for different classes and academic programs starting in 2018 was touted as saving students more than $8 million, but its end was also a relief on the university’s strained resources and budget.

Processing each student’s potentially multiple course and program fees was estimated as taking about 3,000 hours of labor per academic year, costing about $150,000 in CU salaries and benefits to cover the employees doing the work, said senior vice chancellor and chief financial officer Kelly Fox.

“You step back and say, what value is that?” Fox said. “We decided it would be better to streamline.”

CU will continue to fund the course-related costs through increased revenue from higher enrollment and improved retention, said CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano.

“It’s been about finding a way to eliminate cumbersome, inefficient processes that helped save some money and increase transparency and predictability for our students,” Fox said.

The idea to get rid of the fees has been considered for years, beginning in conversations among CU regents, said CU system spokesman Ken McConnellogue. The fees range from $1 per credit hour taken for German and Slavic languages to a $1,255 fee per semester for the graduate clinical speech, language and hearing sciences program.

“One of the things the President (Bruce Benson) has stressed from Day One is that the university has an obligation to operate as efficiently as possible,” he said. “We’re a $4 billion enterprise, so there’s plenty of room to find efficiencies.”

What sealed the deal, McConnellogue said, was the implementation of the tuition guarantee one year ago, which gave financial predictability to both students and the university as far as how much money was expected of students. Under the program, the tuition rate and mandatory fees such as the recreation center, health services and bike program were locked for four years for entering Colorado resident freshmen. A similar program was created for out-of-state students in 2005.

“It wasn’t until the regents took the lead in adopting the multi-year tuition plan that we were able to sit back and do some longer-term planning that enabled us to push through this idea,” Fox said.

Focusing back on the student benefits, she noted the course fees were negatively impacting student success.

“Just by their nature, it’s not possible to know what the fees are going to be before you sign up for school,” Fox said. “You find out what they are when you pick your courses. That is not conducive to transparency and predictability.”

Echoing Fox’s desire to reduce financial strain on students, McConnellogue said reducing university costs such as the fee elimination typically finds its way back to financially benefiting students.

“All of that is centered on how can we keep the cost of a CU education affordable,” he said. “We think we’ve done a good job with that.”