Biden has been on a kick of trying to end junk fees from all sorts of companies. Now he’s going after those charged by colleges, which are primarily run by Democratic Party voters
Colleges charge tons of junk fees for food and books. Biden may force them to scale back.
The Biden administration is considering slapping new regulations on colleges to curb hidden fees for things such as food and textbooks.
The changes are part of a bundle of reforms the Education Department is debating this week during a fresh round of policy discussions. The talks are largely centered on heightening federal scrutiny of the higher education industry ? a priority President Joe Biden has indicated is a piece of his efforts to bring down the soaring cost of college and ease the student loan debt it causes.
Under some of the proposed changes to federal law, universities would be barred from pocketing some of the leftover money they get for low-income students whose school meal plans are paid for using federal financial aid.
At many colleges, students use special meal funds ? called “flex” accounts ? to help cover part of their food expenses (at grocery stores, for example). Money in those accounts can come from the federal government, which helps colleges with financial aid programs. But students don’t always use all their “flex” money by the end of the year, and in some cases, schools end up keeping the difference.
That’s not fair, the department is arguing. The agency says schools should give money back to students who need it.
That doesn’t look like a junk fee, that looks more like colleges stealing money from students and taxpayers. Unless the colleges can show that they are using the federal money for other students
A separate change would prevent most colleges and universities from automatically charging students for books and supplies. Under the current rules, schools can include fees for books and supplies as part of required bills for “tuition and fees,” even when students can find materials at cheaper prices from other sources.
“The department is concerned that lack of disclosure and transparency limits students’ ability to find less expensive materials or assess if their school is offering the most affordable arrangement,” the proposed rule says.
Textbook affordability advocates lauded the move. The current state of automatic billing programs means that in some cases, students are charged for resources they could have acquired for a better price, according to Daniel Williamson, the managing director of the education nonprofit OpenStax.
“Getting charged for something you can get for free, that’s the definition of a junk fee,” he said in an email.
That is pretty shady. How much does it cost students?
Other critics warned the proposal could end up raising prices for students in other ways. Robert Nelson, the president of the National Association of College and University Food Services, said although his organization hasn’t taken a stance on the plan and is still studying it, it could end up hurting students’ bottom lines.
So, what they and others is saying is if the Brandon regime ends these junk fees then the Democrat run colleges will raise their prices and screw the kiddies, many of whom are working towards silly and worthless degrees for way too much money?
Realistically, these are just periphery issues for why colleges (mostly run be Democrat voters) are so costly, and will not do much to resolve it. But, really, this is just an election year scam to buy votes from the youts.
Everyone hates junk fees. We see them all the time with add-on fees and things that were not disclosed up front. But then, colleges and universities rarely spend much time marketing their price structures. Instead they market things like “the university experience”. Part of the whole college experience is getting shafted for fees and tuition for useless degrees. So many college degrees lead to careers where someone does not need a degree at all to succeed. The big names in Journalism did not have journalism degrees. The big names in acting did not have acting degrees. Even the big names in industry and business did not have degrees in business. Why does a high school graduate need a 4 year degree to teach 5th graders? Shouldn’t they already be experts at fifth grade knowledge? So much of what we call higher education is really just a scam. They milk the public until savings are exhausted and then hand out easy to get, government-backed loans to cover the rest.
Year on year, college tuition has been rising faster than inflation. They can do that because they face no competition from market price pressures since there is a government-backed load to pay for it all. Government-backed loans directly results in higher prices. Real people are much more careful when they are spending their own money and there is a real limit on what they have.
Is that what the agency says? Really? Well screw the agency. How about they give the money back to the taxpayers who they stole it from originally?
Another alternative would be for the colleges themselves to provide student loans and accept the risk of not being paid back. I suspect that they would allow fewer worthless degrees and only loan money for degrees that lead to a nice paycheck. Worthless degrees will still be available for children of rich people who are only in college as a hobby anyway.
The primary junk fee at most colleges is TUITION.