NORTON, Mass. — A month after graduating from Wheaton College, Jennifer Bombasaro-Brady was back on campus urging the student government to ask the state attorney general to investigate the college’s billing practices for students studying abroad.

Ms. Bombasaro-Brady, who spent a semester in South Africa on a program run by the School for International Training, said Wheaton forced her family to pay full Wheaton tuition, room and board — more than $21,000 that semester — even though the program cost $4,439 less.

“I had an amazing time in South Africa, and I wouldn’t change the experience for anything in the world,” Ms. Bombasaro-Brady said. “But it doesn’t seem right that I was living in a place with no heat, no hot water, no electricity, no Internet, and paying the cost of my dorm room here.”

Wheaton is not the only institution to charge home tuition and fees to students who study abroad on programs that cost thousands of dollars less. But because of Ms. Bombasaro-Brady’s family, it is the one facing litigation on the pricing question.

In a closely watched lawsuit, filed last month in Massachusetts state court, her father, James Brady, said Wheaton’s policy of pocketing the difference between the cost of a study-abroad program and the full Wheaton tuition was a deceptive practice.

“On the Web site, Wheaton says it will charge full tuition for approved programs,” said Mr. Brady, a lawyer from Hingham, Mass., who filed the suit. “But they don’t give you any information about the actual cost, so you don’t find out about the hidden charge they’re pocketing.”

In court and out, the relationship between universities and the study-abroad programs they use is coming under new scrutiny. In January, the New York attorney general’s office sent subpoenas to 15 universities seeking data about how they administer their study-abroad programs and whether they receive cash bonuses, junkets or other perks for steering students to particular programs. The Connecticut attorney general is also looking at university practices.

“We are doing a wide-ranging investigation of campus conduct that impacts middle-class students,” said Benjamin Lawsky, a special assistant to the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo. “We’re looking at the financial relationships and the pricing.”

Wheaton, like other colleges with similar policies, defends its study-abroad charges.

“We feel our policies are completely appropriate, and we believe they’re clear,” said Michael Graca, a spokesman for Wheaton.

Wheaton says its pricing system for study abroad is consistent with its overall approach to tuition, under which students pay the same fee whether they take expensive courses like science labs or cheaper ones like literature surveys. The college also says its system allows it to award financial aid to help needy students study abroad. And even when an outside program handles everything overseas, Wheaton’s global education office provides orientation and counseling, the college says.

The issue has landed in the spotlight as study abroad becomes increasingly common; nearly a quarter-million college students went overseas last year, up from fewer than 90,000 in 1995-6, according to the Institute of International Education. For colleges, the trend presents financial challenges.

A college’s fixed costs do not go down when students leave for a semester, and some institutions have many empty beds during the spring semester, the most popular study-abroad time. A few colleges, including Middlebury, admit first-year students midyear to help fill those beds. But Middlebury does not charge full tuition for those who leave campus.

“We have parents pay the study-abroad programs directly, so they pay the cost of the program they choose,” said Jeffrey Cason, Middlebury’s dean of international programs.

How colleges charge for study abroad varies widely. Some, like Wheaton, charge full home tuition, room and board. Some, like Columbia, charge full tuition, but not room and board. Others, like Middlebury, let students pay the program directly. And many tack on an additional study-abroad fee, ranging from $200 to $2,000.

“Institutions are investing much more in study abroad, the field is becoming professionalized, and that means it costs more money,” said Brian J. Whalen, president of the Forum on Education Abroad at Dickinson College, which recently issued study abroad guidelines emphasizing the need for cost transparency but not mandating any particular pricing system.

A recent forum survey shows that the most common arrangement is for families to pay the study-abroad programs directly, avoiding the home tuition.

Mr. Brady said he tried to negotiate such an arrangement for his daughter but was told by the study-abroad office to pay full tuition, under protest, or risk her not receiving credit for the semester.

“They tell you that if you go on the very same program yourself and don’t do it through the school, they won’t give you the credits,” Mr. Brady said. “I think that’s holding the credits hostage.”

Colleges say they have a responsibility to make sure they are not awarding credit for low-quality programs. But parents complain that colleges often refuse credit for programs that are identical to the approved ones, or even for programs with higher academic ratings than those the colleges have approved.

So the Brady lawsuit resonates with many parents and students. Katelyn Brewer, who spent one semester of her junior year at Wheaton in Paris and the other in Dublin, said she resented paying Wheaton more than $36,000 that year, when Boston University, which ran the program, charged only $26,000 for them.

“I asked the person in the global education office couldn’t I just do the programs on my own and pay B.U. directly, but she said no, if I did that, I wouldn’t get credit,” said Ms. Brewer, who graduated last year. “So I took out extra loans. Now, a year out, I’m interning and waitressing and trying to find a job in my field, and I have about $600 a month to pay back. I loved Wheaton, but I don’t think their study-abroad charges are fair.”

Some parents who are currently paying full tuition while their children study abroad in cheaper programs said they were rooting for the Brady family.

But at the Wheaton student government meeting concerning Ms. Bombasaro-Brady’s request to approach the state attorney general, students worried over what might happen if the lawsuit were successful or if the state got involved. Would Wheaton go bankrupt? Would tuition go up? Would fewer students be able to study abroad? In the end, they voted to table the issue.

“This resolution is not appropriate for us to deal with,” said Jonathan Wolinsky, a student senator. “We are treading into waters that are not ours to enter. This relates to Wheaton in a manner I do not want to touch with a 10-foot pole.”

Source: http://www.instituteforlegalreform.org/media/displayarticle.cfm?artid=ILLI3714582625