Parents concerned with pay per-credit system

Cyrus Nuval
Staff Writer

Several parents of incoming students at new student orientation said they felt confused and worried about the new pay-per-credit tuition fee system.

When asked if they were aware of the tuition fee system change, some parents said they were unaware or uninformed by their child or VCU before or during orientation.

Susan Flanagan’s daughter has been accepted to study art at VCU. She said both she and her daughter were not informed that the tuition fee plan had recently changed from a flat-rate plan to a pay-per-credit plan.

“I wish we were told by the school that it had changed,” Flanagan said. “We are probably not going to be able to do much about it at the moment, but we would be more grateful if we were made aware of the change.”

William Bowler was also unaware of the change. He said his freshman daughter, who plans to major in economics, has been doing most of the research into VCU’s tuition fees. However, she had not told him about the change in tuition fee system or even what the current system is now.

“It would be nice if the university told us how VCU’s new system works,” he said. “I trust my daughter, but it would be nice to know how the price got to where it is. I am the one paying it after all.”

Other parents who were aware of the change in the tuition fee plan were still confused as they said that they had never encountered such a system before.

Colin Schmidt, a VCU graduate who has a son planning to major in physics, said that the new system is much different from when he was at VCU.

“It sounds good in theory,” Schmidt said. “Hopefully it works in application. Somehow, I expect to be paying a lot more than I expected … That’s usually what happens when the (administration) changes some things.”

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