The students of the Charlotte School of Law are petitioning against the increase in tuition for the following reasons including but not limited to, 1) There was also an increase in July 2013; 2) The timing of the introduction and implementation were within two months of each other with no notification to the students; 3) The lack of notification impaired the students ability to make any informed decisions on their want or ability to continue at the school; and 4) The fact that the increase is not prompted by the addition of any benefits or services to the students.

The tuition increase was introduced at a Fudiciary board meeting on June 24, 2014, and was given final approval by the board in July 2014, to be implement August 2014. Within only 2 months of the initial introduction. This is following another increase decided in July 2013. This proposal was introduced and implemented without informing the students that there was a possibility of increase during the last academic calendar year, or any time prior to the actual making of the decision.

The decision to increase tuition was also made after the application deadlines for other schools were closed, not allowing the students to make the decision to apply for transfer to another school should they not want to pay the increased tuition. In the same regards, this decision was made after most students have already filed their financial aid for the year. This means that some students have already informed the financial aid providers that they wanted to borrow the full cost of tuition, based on last year’s amount, only to find that they are now going to incur additional debt if they wish to continue. When questioned if there was going to be any adjustments to scholarships, or other student aid provided by the school to cover the additional costs of tuition, we were simply informed that “No additional adjustments have been outlined.” This places the entire burden of the increase on the shoulders of the already overburdened students.

The importance of this is not only because of the breakdown in communication between the school and the students, but also because the students are the ones incurring the extra debt and are not being notified or given an opportunity to make an informed decision on how and/or where they would like to spend their tuition dollars.

Charlotte School of Law is ran by the for profit organization, Infilaw Corporation, which also runs Florida Costal School of Law and Phoenix School of Law. Charlotte School of law is one of the larger schools, which means that more profit is derived from the students at this school than the other two. However, a recent article in the ABA Journal online stated that the fluctuating bar passage rates of Charlotte School of Law students have often fallen below state averages, and job placement has also been a challenge. This isn’t the only report of its kind. With no additional services being added to increase bar passage rates, or increase job placement, or even provide parking passes to the students, we ask how will the additional tuition dollars be spent?

We petition the Infilaw Corporation to rescind the tuition increase. In the alternative, we ask that they defer the increase for another academic year and work with the students and student government in order to generate additional services that could be instituted with the additional tuition monies received.