ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605290069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH VIGODA PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
FLORIDA, MONTANA, AND NORTH CAROLINA are the first states to approve a surcharge system.
Life at a state university can be grand.
You don't have to make your bed or fix your meals; somebody always is willing to toss a Frisbee on the lawn you don't have to mow; and the cost is relatively low.
It's no surprise then that many students find it difficult to leave - and don't.
They change majors or take electives that do not count toward graduation, and the college experience gradually stretches into a six- or seven-year avoidance of the real world. Meanwhile, a population bulge of teen-agers waits to move into those well-warmed seats.
Now, the dawdlers may be forced to get a life. In at least three states - Montana, Florida and North Carolina - legislators and higher-education officials have sent a clear message: Stop messing around.
Under rules passed last month by the Montana Board of Regents, freshmen who live in the state and enter its university system this fall will be subsidized for up to 144 credits, 24 credits above the average requirement for graduation. After that, they will be charged the out-of-state fee of $292 a credit - compared with $118 for residents.
In Florida, the Legislature just passed a bill requiring state schools to charge an extra 25 percent per credit hour to students who amass more than 132 credits.
Students at North Carolina's public universities also face a 25 percent penalty on top of the regular tuition, a policy implemented in 1994.
``The state legislature said do it, and the Board of Governors did it,'' said Gary Barnes, vice president for program assessment and public service for North Carolina's system of higher education.
Similar legislation was defeated in California and Texas in the last few years. In Wisconsin, the Board of Regents this month recommended that a penalty fee be considered.
Barnes said that since North Carolina's policy went into effect, he has received numerous calls from officials in states where the idea is being considered.
After a prolonged decline, the number of high school graduates is beginning to increase, leaving campus administrators worried ``about having to deny the opportunity to other students because there are students continuing to take up their spaces,'' Snyder said.
``Our president compares it to going to a restaurant,'' said Betty Capaldi, director of institutional research at the University of Florida. ``You're waiting in line, and there's a couple that has had dinner and had coffee and they sit there, and at some point when they're on the eighth cup of coffee you think you have a right to the table.''
If the concept of penalties for excess credits sweeps through higher education, it would be ``an unfortunate direction,'' said C. Peter Magrath, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges in Washington.
``Students are having a hard enough time dealing with the cost of college today, without imposing on them further hardships by telling them how much time they have before a surcharge penalty is imposed on them for taking too long,'' Magrath said.
Students compile too much credit for a variety of reasons - chief among them taking courses that cannot be transferred from one school to another.
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