Recently Dan Youngblood, the director of [the Office of] the Bursar and student accounts, announced that starting in Fall 2016 IUPUI will have a banded tuition rate. What does this mean? This means that any student who is taking full time credits (12 credits or more) will pay a flat rate of 15 credits, which is $4,070.55 for in state students and $14, 363.17 for out of state students. However, the banded tuition won’t affect part time students so those people who are taking 11 credit hours or less a semester will continue to pay per credit, which is $271.37 for in state students and $957.58 for out of state students. Some of you may be thinking, why did IUPUI decide to do this? Not only does IUPUI have an astonishingly high transfer rate but IUPUI is below the national average for students graduating on time, whether it’s with a two year associates or four year bachelor’s degree. In an attempt to combat this problem the powers that be at IUPUI decided to band the tuition rate at 15 credits to encourage people who only take 12, 13, or 14 credits a semester to take more classes so that they graduate on time. It’s also a financial break to those students that have to take 16+ credits a semester because they’ll only have to pay for the first 15 credits, essentially getting to take another class for “free”. Some of you may be thinking, where does IUPUI keep getting the number 15? To be eligible to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in the U.S. a student must complete a total of 120 credit hours. That number (120) broken up into the standard eight semesters equals a total of 15 credits per semester. However, according to FASFA, 12 credit hours a semester is considered full time but taking 15 credits a semester is considered on time to graduate in four years, none of this including AP or Dual Credits from high school.

With all of this information in mind, what’s all the fuss about? The biggest opponents to the banded tuition rate are those students who fall into the category of only needing to take 12, 13, or 14 credits a semester but will be forced to pay for 15. At first I was one of those students who fell into that category. By transfer credits from high school and taking summer classes and just planning my collegiate career wisely I only need to take 12-13 credits a semester to graduate on time. When I first heard of the banded tuition, I was outraged. Why should I have to pay for 15 credits when I’m only taking 12? I’m paying for something I’m not even using. How unfair is that? But after a lot of thought and talking to people who will benefit from the new, banded tuition, I can now see the good that will come from banding the tuition at IUPUI.

For my degree, a Bachelor’s of Arts in Communication Studies, I only need to take 33 credits of core communication classes in addition to the IU School of Liberal Arts pre requisites, which will account for the other 87 credit hours. When I looked at my four-year, degree-planning map I noticed that I would be fulfilling the bare minimum requirements to graduate from IUPUI. I thought to myself, just because I only need to take 11 communication classes doesn’t mean I should only take 11. Why not take more? If I’m in college to just get a degree so I can start my career, then sure, sign me up for the bare minimum. But after thinking about it, if I’m in college to really learn and totally understand my field of study, why not squeeze in as many communication classes as I can while I’m still here? After realizing that I didn’t want to be at IUPUI just to grab my degree and move on, but instead invest as much time as I can into learning about something I love I decided that banding tuition wasn’t that bad at all, at least for me. I’ll be able to fit one more communication class into each semester before I graduate so that way when I finally graduate with that coveted degree in hand I’ll know that I’m as prepared as I can be because I went above and beyond the bare minimum that my degree required.

Now, I’m sure at this point some of you are thinking, “Well I’m a Biomedical Engineering major and I don’t have the time to take more than 12 credits a semester” or “I don’t want to pay to take 15 credits when I know I can’t and won’t ever be able to handle that many”. The only thing I can say to that is: I’m sorry. I understand, you’re in a hard major focusing on getting into medical/dental/graduate/law/PA/OT/PT school and right now you have to focus on your GPA and that may entail only taking four classes instead of five. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it. There have been open forums at IUPUI and debates and concerns taken from students regarding this issue and it’s been settled. IUPUI will have banded tuition starting in the fall and there is nothing we can do about it. Furthermore, IUPUI isn’t the only school that’s moving to banded tuition. Indiana University Bloomington, Purdue University (West Lafayette), Ball State University, and Indiana State University have all made the switch to 15 credit hour banded tuition in the hopes that this new strategy encourages more people to graduate in four years, with less debt. Ultimately, at the end of the day, banded tuition is going to help more students than it “harms” and as of right now, there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m choosing to use this opportunity to push myself to learn more about my major to better prepare myself for my career and if you’re one of those people who fall into the category that banded tuition doesn’t help, I’m sorry to hear that and I hope you find a way to make the best of this situation because that’s what I’m doing.