The University of Houston is still charging mandatory fees for all of its students during the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of those fees, the University is charging an additional fee for transitioning classes online which we had no say in. The University of Houston is putting an additional financial burden on students amidst depression-era unemployment levels. Despite the university having an endowment upwards to $1,000,000,000, they have decided to nickel-and-dime the very students they claim to serve. 

These iniquitous actions on behalf of the University are beyond reprehensible; it’s extortion. There is no reason the university should be charging fees for students being forced to take online classes. I personally enrolled in lectures that were supposed to be taught in person. Why should we have to pay for the university’s decision to change the format of our courses?

The university has been recklessly spending money on projects and placing the financial responsibility on its students. Students have no say in what the university allocates it’s funding to. The University of Houston is a public university, and yet it charges students a $75 application fee, a $75 mandatory orientation fee, and countless other fees they manage to sneak into the cost of tuition. Just last year, the university solicited over $1,003,000,000 in donations. How can they manage to do that while charging outlandish fees when 30% of their students have a household income less than $30,000.

I have tried on multiple occasions to get more information on the “consolidated fees” that are lumped together with our cost of tuition. The Office of Student Business Services, the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, and the Office of Student Affairs and Enrollment have given me blanket statements that have no relevance to the information I requested or just haven’t responded to my inquiries.

The students of the University of Houston are what keep the University alive. It seems as though the university has started caring more about profiting off their students than they do helping them. We need to send a message to them that it’s time they stop trying to squeeze every last cent out of us and start giving back.