Everybody knows that college is extremely expensive. Mostly, financial aid won’t even cover the costs.

There are meal plans, dorm charges, basic tuition and the book bundle, to name a few. But what on Earth is a Matriculation Fee, and why is it $130? College today is incredibly expensive, especially with the hidden fees that students are unaware of.

Every semester, students pay hundreds in hidden fees. Even if the fee is only $10, the question arises of why we must pay these. ULM should be open and transparent with students about the in-and-outs of student fees.

According to Marketplace.org, colleges must resort to fees to get money to fund services or activities—or even instruction in some cases. This would make sense for smaller community colleges, but ULM received over $2.5 million in federal funding last January for “projects.” If they’ve acquired this much that we know of in recent years, where is the money from our fees going?

If you take a quick look at your Banner account, you can see all the fees you have had to pay through the years past. One of the big ones I’ve noticed, close to $1K, is the University Board Assessed Fee. If you look this up on ULM’s website, there isn’t a clear explanation for why we must pay it every semester. Why are we giving our money to something if we don’t know what it’s being used for?

You might as well take $1K and throw it out of the window of your car on the interstate.

Another set of hidden and unknown fees is “professional fees.” Why am I paying $350 for a “professional” toxicology fee as an undergraduate? There’s no explanation for this fee on the ULM website.

Here’s an example of how quickly these fees add up. Let’s say that only 50 toxicology majors enroll at ULM. If they all pay $350 per semester, that’s over $17K. That’s $35K per year. I would like to know how these “professional fees” are contributing to my curriculum and education.

These are only a few examples of how ULM lacks transparency when it comes to fee bills. Students should know where their money is going before paying these additional fees. ULM needs to release a detailed list describing the purpose and reasoning behind each fee.

It’s a disgrace that furthering one’s education should cost an arm and a leg.