Rising college health fees hit a nerve for already strapped parents

You might be in for a shock.

Hawley Montgomery-Downs was thrilled when daughter Bryn Tronco earned a scholarship that pays half the $63,000 annual tuition at the University of Southern California. But just as school was starting in August, she was stunned to receive a bill from USC for $3,000 to cover both a student health insurance premium and a fee that allows students to access on-campus clinics and other services. At home in West Virginia, she had paid nothing for her daughter’s health insurance, through the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, which serves lower- and middle-class families.

Montgomery-Downs, who lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, was especially upset that USC not only billed her for health insurance but a $1,050 annual health fee. “It would be nice for her to go to the student health center, but with buying insurance to go to a primary care provider, it feels like I am paying twice,” she said.

Mandatory medical insurance and health service fees are common at colleges as a condition of enrollment, said
Stephen Beckley, a Fort Collins, Colorado, health and benefits consultant to colleges. While the health fee can help reduce students’ insurance premiums, parents may feel as though they are paying double. “That’s a big conundrum for our field,” he said.

For parents, these big payments might come as a surprise, making a barely affordable education feel even less so. After all, students can economize by choosing a skimpy meal plan and cooking their own dinners or buying used textbooks, but there is no way around the mandatory health fees.

The costs vary by school but often can amount to several thousand dollars a year — costs that health care advocates say should be carefully reviewed by parents and students to ensure they understand their options while also meeting university requirements.

Students can seek a waiver to university health insurance by showing they have their own insurance or are covered by their parent’s insurance that meets specific university criteria. Schools typically want to see that a student’s own insurance covers local doctors and hospitals for little out-of-pocket cost.

Student health fees, however, generally can’t be waived.

USC, a private college,
charges $2,273 a year
for its Aetna student health insurance plan. The average for public colleges is $2,712 and $3,540 at private universities, according to a
2022 survey
by Beckley’s firm, Hodgkins Beckley & Lyon.

Other prominent colleges charge much more, such as
$6,768 at Stanford
and $4,163 at