what's with the extra fee to take some classes?

sybbie719
Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:10:37 +0000

Lets see…

All students need science class with lab to fulfill their distribution requirement for graduation. So if a studnet only takes the one lab it comes out to a $30 lab fee. Labs meet 1/week for 10 weeks that comes out to $3 per lab.

Large science cources with labs (ex chem 5/6) has lab sections and each section is then broken down into 4 sections. Example if you are in a monday section from 2 to 6 p.m that section is broken into 4 sections of approximately 10 students. Each student has their own lab set up.

For chem alone there are 12-15 labs per week for this one class. Materials have to be ordered, replaced and labs must be cleaned maintained.

In some schools the fees for lab are just incorporated in in the student fees that the all students pay for whether they take 1 lab or 10 labs over their undergrad careers. At the end of the day the $30 is a nit. You have some schools that don’t charge for lab but charge for internet connection or phones (both which are free at Dartmouth).

Regarding your $40,000+ payment of tuition room and board. Most of this cost is used to cover the cost of running a university. This includes: maintenance and upkeep of the physical facility, salaries for teaching, administrative, and other staff positions. To the cost of the salaries add on approx 35% fringe to cover benefits (medical, dental, pensions, etc). Contrary to what you think it cost more than $40,000 per year to educate a student at Darmouth , the other Ivies, Williams and similiar schools. Do everyone begins with a subsidy.

In the end it is about choosing your battles. If one wants $30 buck in the end to stand between them and graudation, that is there choice. If a potential student finds lab fees on top of the cost of tuition to be so egregious, there are more than 3,000 other schools which they can attend.