Student Union
Tuition Decreases, Donations Bring Students Relief
After decades of tuition increases at U.S. colleges and universities that have led to increased student debt and pushback from students and their families, some schools are reducing costs.
At the University of Michigan — ranked among the top public universities in the U.S. — free tuition will be extended at its Flint and Dearborn campuses. Called the Go-Blue guarantee, the offer applies to new full-time students residing in Michigan with a 3.5 grade-point average (GPA) on a 4.0 scale, with a family income of $65,000 or less or assets of less than $50,000.
The University of Michigan has 6,666 international students, according to the university's International Center, and the state has a large Arab population.
"Not only will most in-state undergrads see no change in their net tuition costs, we estimate that more than a quarter will pay no tuition at all," University President Mark Schlissel said.
Clinton College, a historically black college (HBCU) in South Carolina, is cutting tuition in half for its students this fall and will give every student a new computer tablet. Associate Vice President of Student Enrollment Jocelyn Biggs said the COVID-19 pandemic has created hardships.
"This is our way of saying you can still go to college at a reduced tuition amount and we're here to help," Biggs said.
Tuition for full-time students living on campus is $10,165 per semester and $5,240 for those living off-campus. Clinton College was one of many schools established by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church during Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War, to help eradicate illiteracy among freedmen, according to its website. It has operated for 120 years.
The Kentucky Community and Technical College will maintain tuition from last year's rates.
"The board wanted to help students, and we felt keeping our tuition at the same rate would help thousands of families," Board Chair Gail Henson said in a news release.
Out-of-state students from counties contiguous to Kentucky pay $358 per credit hour. All other out-of-state students pay $627 per credit hour. International students typically pay out-of-state rates.
Tuition for in-state students at the University of Maine also will not increase in the coming academic year. The university has more than 600 international students from 70 countries and offers generous scholarships to those students, according to its website. Maine has a significant immigrant population from Africa.
The University of South Carolina announced it will freeze tuition at last year's rates. Other universities are issuing increases of about 1% to 2%.
The cost of tuition and fees at U.S. colleges and universities is the No. 1 reason that international students seek higher education elsewhere, in places such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE). Those countries have been trying to attract foreign students through less expensive tuition and fees since enrollment in U.S. schools began to slide three years ago.
"The costs of U.S. higher education remain a perennial challenge in attracting international students, with 55.1% of institutions citing costs as one of the reasons for falling new student enrollment," according to IIE's Open Door report released in November 2019.
Celebrity donations recently have contributed to some students being able to study for less.
Yale University recently received a $150 million donation from David Geffen, a Hollywood business magnate, to the newly renamed David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. As a result, the university dropped its tuition for any student pursuing a degree or certificate in drama. It will allow the drama school to eliminate tuition for all degree and certificate programs, the university said.
Another billionaire, MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist and former wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has made three rounds of donations to 286 organizations, including U.S. colleges and universities, totaling $8 billion.
Those schools include Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City, College of the Desert in California, Florida International University in Miami (FIU), the University of Central Florida in Orlando (UCF) and Broward College in Fort Lauderdale.
In the case of UCF, the gift was the largest in the school's 58-year history.
In 2020, Scott made two similar surprise announcements in which she donated a combined $6 billion to fund COVID-19 relief, gender equity, historically Black colleges and universities and other schools.
The gift will help UCF toward its goal of becoming the world's leading public metropolitan research university, said UCF President Alexander Cartwright.
"The gift is a sign of trust and validation of our direction, and of the promising work that lies ahead for us and all our partners," a statement from Broward College said. "We send a tremendous thank you to MacKenzie Scott for this gift that will create economic mobility in Broward County for generations to come."
"This generous gift is a game-changer for FIU and our students' success for generations to come," said Mark Rosenberg, FIU's president. "Ms. Scott, [her husband] Mr. [Dan] Jewett and their team have taken note of our work serving a diverse student body and developing evidence-based strategies that have proven effective in helping our students succeed. This gift allows us to augment programs that we know work, develop models that can be replicated elsewhere, lift communities and combat poverty."
Twitter user @ramblingroses8 tweeted, "I don't know what I'd tell a kid today. I absolutely needed college because I'm an intellectual who wanted to explore ideas. it didn't make me much $ in the long run, but it was worth it to me. I did it on many jobs, aid & student loans, but it wasn't this expensive."
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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US campuses are battlegrounds in free speech debate
This week the University of Southern California canceled the graduation speech of its senior class valedictorian at a time when there is a growing debate over the limits of free speech on American college campuses.
USC’s Asna Tabassum, a Muslim biomedical engineer major, was selected from among 100 outstanding students to address the graduating class of 2024 this May. However, the school withdrew the invitation for her to speak at the graduation ceremony citing safety concerns.
Tabassum denounced the decision, which she attributed to her public support for Palestinian human rights. She said it is part of “a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice.”
The school maintains it is a safety issue, not about free speech. School officials say they received an alarming number of violent threats after selecting her as speaker.
USC is one of many American universities that have struggled with policies over free speech and campus protest since October’s Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the continuing fighting in Gaza. After weeks or months of on-campus protests and rallies, schools have been taking more forceful action to punish protesters who administrators say have become disruptive.
On Thursday at Columbia University in New York, police arrested more than 100 students who had gathered on campus for pro-Palestinian protests. The school’s dean wrote that the protesters had been told several times that they were violating university policies and would be suspended. The students say they were exercising their free speech rights.
At Washington’s American University, protests in all campus buildings have been banned by the school’s president since January. Under the new policy, students may not hold rallies, engage in silent protests or place posters in any campus building.
Protests and safety
University students have a long history of engaging in political activism. From the Vietnam War to abortion rights, universities have played a key role in American political debates.
However, students now say that schools like AU with a long-standing protest culture are silencing protesters with new rules.
Arusa Islam, American University student body president-elect and current vice president, says the policies are preventing an open discussion about U.S. foreign policy.
“Indoor protesting was never a problem, it was never an issue before October 7th,” Islam said. “Students were allowed to put up posters in buildings and students were allowed to have a silent protest.”
“And now we don’t have that right anymore,” she added. “We have been silenced and it is affecting us greatly.”
American University’s president, Sylvia Burwell, says the school’s new policies are intended to ensure that protests do not disrupt university activity.
Burwell also referred to recent events on campus that “made Jewish students feel unsafe and unwelcome.” She added, antisemitism is abhorrent, wrong, and will not be tolerated at American University.
While administrators insist that they are making narrow restrictions in the interests of providing an education, critics say the policies have a far-reaching effect.
At Cornell University, where new rules took effect in January, Claire Ting, the executive vice president of the Cornell Student Assembly, said the policies have had an unsettling effect on campus.
“The campus climate at Cornell has been tense surrounding free speech in recent times,” Ting emailed VOA.
Ting said that both students and faculty feel the policy has had chilling effects on free expression.
“Students report facing arbitrary, escalating punishment for violating the policy, with the policy itself lacking clear outlines for the consequences of civil disobedience,” she added.
In its new policy Cornell warns students that disciplinary action may be taken if protests impede people or traffic, damage school property or interfere with the school’s operations in any way.
In its campus-wide notice explaining the new guidelines, the school wrote that the new policy would ensure that expressive activity is allowed but must remain nonviolent.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, also known as FIRE, has tracked free speech issues on American campuses.
FIRE and College Pulse have produced an annual survey, since 2022, ranking colleges based on their policies and what students say about the free speech climate on campus.
This year the group reported that “alarming” numbers of students say they self-censor or “find their administrations unclear” on free speech issues.
“College campuses have always been places where students have been unafraid to express themselves and with the recent Gaza conflict after the 10/7 attacks, it’s been very heated on both sides of this issue,” said Zach Greenberg, the senior program officer of FIRE.
Harvard ranked last in this year’s survey. FIRE said the school punished some professors and researchers over what they had said or written, and students reported a poor climate for free speech on campus.
The controversy came to Congress late last year, when Harvard’s president testified over complaints of widespread antisemitism.
“I don’t think you’d find many students on campus right now that would say we are the model for flourishing free speech and ideas exchange in the country,” said J. Sellers Hill, president of Harvard’s school newspaper The Harvard Crimson.
“But I think you’ve really seen that be acknowledged by administrators and it seems to be something they are dedicated to taking on.”
As the head of The Harvard Crimson, Hill manages the paper’s 350 editors and 90 reporters, who’ve covered, in detail, the ongoing free speech/protests controversy and the resignation of former President Claudine Gay following her testimony to Congress.
“I think no one would dispute Harvard has work to do and progress to make,” Hill said. “I think it’s a tough sell, for me, that Harvard is uniquely in its own league in terms of intolerance of speech. That doesn’t square with what I have seen on our college campus or on other college campuses around the country. I think Harvard is held to a higher standard.”
Proposed settlement offered over financial aid allegations
A group of U.S. colleges and universities have agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging deceptive financial aid tactics, according to a report published in The Hill.
The schools would pay $284 million to plaintiffs who were enrolled full-time and received financial aid between 2003 and 2024.
The schools have denied the allegations. (April 2024)
