The off-campus fee has increased and students can choose to pay or petition.

At the study abroad meeting on March 31, students planning to study off campus this summer or fall were informed of a $500 increase in the administration fee.

According to Jordan Parsons, Traverse City junior, who is planning on going abroad in the fall: "Everyone going off campus had been told the fee was $280 and that is what we were expecting to pay.

"Then, at the meeting, after everyone had been accepted to their program, there was a half piece of paper and the increase of $500 was written at the bottom."

The purpose of the increase is to counter the loss of money Albion College has suffered from the study abroad program.

According to Troy VanAken, executive vice president, "The students that go off campus continue to use the college services such as e-mail (and) the registrar’s office and we still have to process things in (the) business office."

Albion has the lowest administrative fee of any GLCA school and is one of the few schools that allows students to use their financial aid while studying abroad.

"The college, faculty and administration all value the off-campus experience," VanAken said. "But we can’t afford to lose money."

According to VanAken, the only option besides raising the fee for students going abroad is to raise tuition for all students.

"We are trying to be flexible where we can, but the choice is, we make it so it is more of a break-even proposition for off-campus programs, or we charge everybody more tuition," VanAken said.

An exception was made for students traveling off campus this summer because they did not receive enough warning.

"That letter (with the wrong cost) was a mistake," VanAken said. "But it wasn’t intentional to try to mislead anybody."

However, some of the students traveling in the fall do not feel they had enough warning either.

"We’re not saying it’s a bad fee," Parsons said. "It’s just (that) the way it was administered to us was unfair."

Scotty Bruce, Ellsworth sophomore, who is planning to study in London through the Boston University program in the fall, agreed with Parsons.

"They dropped a $500 bomb on us without warning," he said.

Bruce said there’s no changing his plans now.

"I’m pretty much past the point of no return," he said.

Parsons explained what Bruce is referring to as the "point of no return."

"We have already signed documents saying we are leaving, put money into getting passports and other travel documents, we haven’t scheduled classes at Albion and we missed out on housing plans," Parsons said. "We are too deep in to say we can’t do it."

While the fee seems inevitable to most students planning to study off campus, Parsons and Jamie Green, Auburn Hills sophomore, are fighting it.

They have created a petition against the fee and have begun to collect signatures from students planning to study abroad in the fall.

Parsons also took the issue to student senate, which agreed to draft a letter to the Board of Trustees in support of the petition and Parsons said student senate will present the petition to the trustees at the trustees’ next meeting.

"Hopefully when the trustees see (the petition and the letter) and look at it from a different point of view, they will see how unfair this is," Parsons said.

There is hope for the students going off-campus in the fall.