Students in the University of Rhode Island’s data science program are facing unexpected tuition increases due to changes in regional tuition agreements, according to university officials.
Regional tuition rates are determined by whether a student’s home state offers a similar program, according to Brenton DeBoef, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and former dean of the Graduate School.
The New England regional tuition rate is managed by the New England Board of Higher Education, according to DeBoef.
The recent tuition hikes for some students are the result of their home states launching new data science programs, since the regional tuition discount only applies if your home state doesn’t offer a particular program, DeBoef said.
Data science students from Maine are now the only ones eligible for regional tuition in the major, according to the URI website.
Students are only eligible for New England regional tuition if their major qualifies for it and if they reside in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire or Vermont.
“Whatever state [students are] from started up a data science program, probably, and then they vetoed ours,” DeBoef said. “That’s how this works, other states can veto basically.”
Some students might’ve been eligible for regional tuition rates, but it was never given to them. An example would be Rachel Olson, a fourth-year data science and math major.
“I found out that other people from Massachusetts were getting regional tuition,” Olson said. “I was kind of mad, honestly. I was happy for them but if they were getting it why wasn’t I?”
The lack of communication between advisors, administrators and students was very frustrating, causing a feeling of shared anger between fellow data science students, according to Olson.
“The fact that they removed [regional tuition] without notifying the students ahead of time was very bad.” Olson said.
The tuition increase came with little warning possibly due to the timing of the increase in tuition rate, according to DeBoef.
Unfortunately there isn’t a way to keep the same discounted rate once a program has been vetoed from NEBHE, according to DeBoef.
“It might kind of be nice if there’s a grandfather clause, but it doesn’t seem like there is,” DeBoef said.
Despite the challenges, DeBoef said she encouraged students to seek out scholarships, and a large amount of scholarship money isn’t given away even though it’s allotted by the URI Foundation.
DeBoef urges students to use the resources available on URI’s website to find out what scholarships they may be eligible for.
DeBoef also described the data science field as a blend of math, computer science and statistics, focused on managing and analyzing large datasets.
“The world’s becoming super data centric, and it’s very core easy to generate huge sets of data,” DeBoef said.“There are very good jobs.”
The data science program at URI started about five years ago and continues to grow, according to DeBoef.
“I think now we’re at a point where I’d like to invest in data science as a program. I think it’s got a future,” DeBoef said.
