Despite a strong economy and higher wages, many Americans continue to feel worse off than before the COVID-19 pandemic. One reason is that though the consumer price index has dropped from 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.1% in February 2024, consumer purchasing power has declined by one-fifth over that same period.
To help Americans make ends meet, the Biden administration has launched a Junk Fee Initiative, designed in large part to illustrate that government is working on the citizenry’s behalf to combat hidden charges — all the little line items that aren’t mentioned when a company tries to hook a consumer — but that consumers are compelled to cover when the final bill comes due.
Broadly overlooked in the initiative, however, is the reality that private businesses aren’t exclusively responsible for these annoying fees Americans pay — nonprofits, in particular colleges and universities, are often just as guilty. And if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, charged by the White House with running the initiative, wants to burnish the government’s reputation with its Junk Fee Initiative, it should take a hard look at what America’s institutions of higher learning charge students and families beyond the rising cost of tuition.
