When Wichita State students decide to cancel their on-campus housing contracts, they often find themselves faced with cancellation fees that feel less like policy and more like a money grab.
A review of the cancellation fee structure for the 2024-2025 academic year at WSU reveals just how unreasonable these charges can be. For students who have decided to leave the dorms, the cancellation fees can be as low as $500 if the contract is canceled after Aug. 1. This includes the nonrefundable $75 application fee and a $200 prepayment.
Students, whether continuing their education or dropping out entirely, have the same cancellation charges leading up until August when the fees begin to add up. For students who are staying enrolled but no longer wish to live on campus, the financial burden of canceling a contract is lighter than the burden of students who don’t plan to continue their degree program.
After Aug. 1, a student dropping out altogether pays a $750 cancellation fee as well as room and board charges up until the student moves out. A student who remains enrolled but chooses to leave the dorms is charged $900. Both of these fees include the nonrefundable $75 and $200 prepayments.
But students who fail to cancel their contract before Aug. 1, regardless of when they move out, have to pay room and board charges up to their move-out day, as well as 50% of their contract balance.
If a student who drops out entirely only has to pay $750 maximum, then so should everyone else. The gaps between fees seem as if WSU wants to punish students who remain in classes after changing their minds about campus living.
If anything, WSU should be grateful that after leaving campus housing, a student still chooses to continue with the university and their education. While universities do need to maintain their facilities and plan for occupancy, the excessively high and unreasonable cancellation fees students face are unfair and counterproductive — especially considering the financial strain that many students already endure.
The problem is clear. Many students leave the dorms for perfectly reasonable, often financially-motivated reasons. Between classes, the mandatory meal plan and housing, living on campus is expensive. Living with a roommate off campus can be cheaper.
The more roommates a student lives within an apartment, the cheaper their rent is. The same is hardly true for on-campus housing.
Yet students who want to cancel their housing contracts are penalized with absurd fees. Instead, it seems like WSU wishes to charge its students at every opportunity.
