Computer Society Protests Lab Fees

Voices of protest have been raised among computer science, math, and pre-engineering majors with regard to the levying of lab fees for courses that do not have labs. While this may sound like a simple oversight, it has actually been common practice for many years. Every computer science course that a student takes, incurs a $50 lab fee tacked on to the tuition bill for the semester. This fee is charged regardless of whether a lab is actually scheduled. Similarly, a $40 fee is charged to all students registered for Calculus, a course that also does not have lab sessions.

There have been previous cases where lab fees have been refunded to students. Two years ago, one student petitioned the High Tech Committee to refund lab fees for one course that did not have a lab. The Committee discussed the issue, and all the students in that course soon received refunds. However, the general policy has never been changed.

The issue was raised again at a recent meeting of the Student Life Committee. A senior administrator at the meeting said, he "would look into it," but later reported that there had been no progress on the issue. He surmised that the reason for the charges first originated when computer science students made use of the single YU computer, housed at Einstein, and were charged for their use of the computer.

Students, many of whom paid as much as $500 over the course of their careers in lab fees, noted that the fees are charged indiscriminately. Theoretically, as some administrators have expressed, computer science students should require use of the computer labs more than other students. But in practice, this has not been the case. As one computer science major observed, most CS students have had their own computers, and the labs are mainly used for word processing, AOL, game playing, and other time-passing, technologically oriented activities.

In addition, other courses that use the lab, including Sy Syms courses which take place in the labs, are not charged labs fees. Students expressed hope that this issue will be resolved favorably by the start of the next semester.