Why does TESU charge a residency waiver fee?

[Prloko]

I was having dinner with family and trying to explain to them how TESU works. Everyone else in my family has gone to big name brick and mortars except for me.

I told them that I needed to dish out 2000$ for the residency requirement and instantly I am bombarded by comments like "that sounds for-profit" "Your school's name is Thomas Edison?" "Did Thomas Edison grow up in New Jersey?"


"I don't know where Edison grew up but no, Thomas Edison State University, is a regionally accredited school in New Jersey, it has the same accreditation as the University of Virginia. They have partnerships with alternative styles of credits that utilize ACE recommended credits and are known for their lenient residency requirement.... It's just a check mark for HR, I am not in debt, just stop asking me about it, I explain this to you like once every three months"

I couldn't give a straightforward answer by why they charge the residency requirement because I do not know. My understanding the fee is a relatively new thing, and before you had to do 8 TECEP exams.


The question is what is the real reason for the resident requirement? Does anyone know?

Not to knock your family, but where any of these degrees in business? Colleges have operating costs. These include variable costs like cafeteria lunch, heating bills, teacher salaries, etc. They have fixed costs like capital improvements, IT infrastructure, etc. To cover the costs they get money from endowments, and state funding, the rest are spread over student tuition. Tuition fees are estimated to cover break even left over funds for capital improvements. These are best estimates and schools try to spread the cost based on student consumption (course load) although many charge a flat tuition regardless of consumption (head charge).

TESU, like any other institution has costs, part of this cost is covered by its paltry endowment, it's small state appropriation (about 5% of its total budget) and other income. The great majority is from student fees. To ensure enough fees are brought in from each student, like other schools, they have a minimum residency requirement. Since TESU is also an assessment college which allows you to transfer in 98% of your credits, the allow students to pay a waiver which waives the residency. This isn't some "for-profit" scheme. This benefits the student. Their school had most likely a 30-45 credit minimum residency requirement. I'm sure if they had the opportunity to transfer in 100 credits from a cheaper school and pay a $2000 fee for it, they would likely jump on it.

Many people on this forum get all hurt by the fee, but a lot of these people started after others on here found ways to exploit a loophole. TESU is not being unreasonable to want to charge for their services and receive enough funds from students to cover costs.