Are tuition premiums placed on some areas of study at Kansas University and other U.S. colleges pushing low-income students into majors with less career potential?

According to comments by KU Provost Richard Lariviere in a recent New York Times article, the answer to that question appears to be “yes.”

“We are seeing at this point purely anecdotal evidence,” Lariviere told the Times. “The price sensitivity of poor students is causing them to forgo majoring, for example, in business or engineering, and rather sticking with something like history.”

The next question KU officials should be asking themselves is: “Does such a trend serve the state of Kansas and its students?”

KU is one of several universities mentioned in the New York Times article. KU began charging “differential tuition” (now referred to on the KU Web site as “course fees”) in the early 1990s. The fees were justified as a way to insure students in certain majors have the up-to-date equipment and top-notch faculty necessary to succeed in their careers. However, the tie between higher course fees and majors that lead to higher paying jobs is undeniable.

Course fees this semester in the KU law school are $154 per credit hour. Pharmacy majors pay an additional $132 per hour, business students about $86 per hour and engineering students, $34. A move to add fees to courses in KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences failed earlier this year.

It’s worth noting that even this year’s entering freshmen, who will pay the much-touted four-year “guaranteed” tuition, must pay course fees. And, unlike their tuition, those fees will increase. The per-hour fee for business students, for instance will be at $102 by the time this year’s freshmen are seniors.

The evidence that low-income students are avoiding majors with additional course fees may be anecdotal, but it is nonetheless disturbing. Some observers try to justify the fees by saying that students in disciplines such as business or engineering should pay more because they will earn more when they graduate, but that is a weak rationale. Acquiring a well-paying job may be one goal of a university education but universities shouldn’t be in the business of placing a relative dollar value on various fields of study.

It’s also unsettling for university officials to point to scholarship programs that are funded by the additional fees. That amounts to having students who pay full tuition and fees actually subsidizing the education of some of their classmates.

Universities should be in the business of opening many doors of opportunity to students rather than discouraging them from entering certain fields because the cost of courses in those fields stretch a student’s ability to pay. Too many students already are being left behind because of the rising costs of higher education.

There’s nothing wrong with being a history major, but it doesn’t serve the state of Kansas and its economic future to push people into liberal arts majors rather than encouraging those who are interested to pursue professional degrees. If even anecdotal evidence that course fees are having that effect doesn’t worry KU officials, it should.