Administrators recently discovered that certain computer science courses have been charging an unnecessary lab fee for years, but they have yet to decide whether students who were charged these fees will receive refunds.
So far, the courses known to improperly charge fees are CS 115, CS 135, and CS 306. Labs for these courses each have a fee of $96 and require students to complete assignments and projects on their personal laptops. Concerns arose when current students noticed that they were charged a fee for these labs but the lab didn’t provide them with any equipment, materials, computers, or anything that necessitated a fee from students.
Anthony Picone, a senior Computer Science major and former Vice President of Finance for the Student Government Association, investigated this concern back in December after questioning lab fees of certain computer science courses throughout his college career.
“Last semester, I was in CS 306,” Picone said in an interview with The Stute. “I asked my professor, ‘Why do we have a lab?’ He told me that there’s work that we have to do for the course and that we need to do it in the lab.” Since the course required personal laptops to complete programming assignments, Picone told the professor that he didn’t understand why the lab had a fee. “My professor said he didn’t know why a fee was being charged.”
Picone contacted the Chair of the Computer Science Department, Giuseppe Ateniese, to ask why CS 115, CS 135, and CS 306 had a fee. Ateniese told Picone in an email, “Very good question, and I asked the same a while ago to Finance because in some cases faculty grants are charged to cover these fees. [The fees] made sense in the past, but right now, hands-on activities do not require computer systems from the University.”
Just as some computer science courses have unnecessary lab fees, Picone suggested that some engineering courses, like E 115, require unnecessary lab fees. If administrators determine that E 115 or other engineering courses have charged unnecessary fees, “[this] would mean that almost every student has been charged a lab fee when they probably shouldn’t have,” Picone said.
Cindy Chin, Associate Provost, said that the Office of the Provost, which is responsible for all academic departments, schools, colleges, and research centers, is aware that some lab courses are potentially charging unnecessary lab fees.
But before corrections can be made to the courses and their labs, the Provost’s Office is “analyzing the process of how a course is identified as a lab to determine how to best move forward,” said Chin. “It’s not as simple as just the computer science courses. We first want to reconcile all the courses before making a decision on the computer science ones.”
For now, no refunds can be promised for students who were charged these unnecessary lab fees, said Chin. “We can’t make a decision without knowing the full scope,” she said, “but do know we are looking into it.”
But until students aren’t charged unnecessary lab fees, and until refunds are issued, Picone and other Computer Science students will remain upset.
“I’m frustrated that I might not be getting my money back,” Picone said. “And it’s not just about my money; it’s also about how much extra money Stevens made by taking money from students when they shouldn’t have. If you went to any normal company and they realized this issue, they would probably refund you immediately. But the school doesn’t really care, I guess.”
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