TCU adds new fees for these classes. Students could pay up to $20K extra for their degree
It’s going to cost more to take a TCU business class next year.
The university’s board of trustees in November approved a $250 fee per credit hour for classes taken in the Neeley School of Business.
The decision follows a $1 billion fundraising campaign and a 7.9% tuition increase that made TCU more expensive than Harvard.
“The Neeley differential tuition is essential to our ability to continue offering the highest return on investment for current and future Neeley students,” interim business school dean Hettie Richardson wrote in a letter to students and families.
The extra funds will go to increase the number of faculty and career advisers as well professional development programs like the BNSF Leadership Program.
The new fee will go into effect beginning in the fall of 2024.
While there’s no guarantee the fee won’t change year to year, the extra cost could add $16,000 to $20,500 to the tuition bill over four years for business majors.
Students majoring in finance, management, business information systems and entrepreneurship and innovation are required to take 64 credits of business classes, according to the sample four-year plans on the business school’s website.
The most affected students will be management and supply chain double majors, who are required to take 82 credits to graduate, according to a sample four-year plan.
The average TCU business degree requires 70 credits to graduate. That equates to $17,500 on top of the roughly $240,000 four-year tuition for full-time undergrads.
In her letter, Richardson reassured students that the new pricing shouldn’t limit who can take TCU business classes.
The university is offering a grant for existing students to help cushion the blow.
The Star-Telegram asked a business school spokesperson in an email if the grants would cover the entire cost of the increase and why none of funds from the $1 billion Lead On Campaign weren’t used to offset the increase.
The spokesperson did not reply to the email and did not respond to a phone message requesting comment.
While TCU isn’t the only university in Texas to employ a special per-credit tuition for specific classes, it is the only one among its list of peer institutions that uses the practice.
Both Baylor and SMU have higher ranked undergraduate business programs than TCU, according to U.S. News and World Report. Neither charge extra for their business classes.
The University of Texas at Austin, which has the fifth-ranked undergraduate business program in the country, charges $550 to Texas residents and $1,100 to out-of-state students per semester.
The Neeley School of business is TCU’s largest college, and one of the university’s fastest growing. It’s share of total enrollment has grown 31.48% between 2011 and 2023, according to university statistics.
Only the College of Science and Engineering, which grew 13.1%, has increased its share over the same time period.
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