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James’ impressive list of accomplishments garnered attention from colleges all over the country, colleges her family could never have afforded to send her to. James had considered going to a small technical college in the area, but she held out hopes that her application for Hamline’s Presidential Scholarship would be accepted. In the spring of 2003, James received word that she was awarded the scholarship.

Until recently, that scholarship covered her tuition in full. Last month, a letter in her campus mailbox informed James that her account had been put on hold. Thinking it was nothing more than a small bill she had incurred from printing off a research project, James paid little attention to the letter. Last week, however, she received another letter, this one informing her that she would be barred from registering for classes if she did not satisfy the bill. Shortly after opening it, she rushed to Student Administrative Services (SAS).

“When I showed the woman at the desk the letter, she just sort of stared at me. That’s when I knew something was wrong,” said James.

She spent the next six hours at SAS, trying to sort out what was wrong. She spoke with four student accounts representatives and the manager of SAS, and was eventually asked to wait for Vice President of Finance Doug Anderson.

“They said I owed $32,000, like I hadn’t paid any of my tuition,” James said. The problem was bigger than she knew. Indeed, her account indicated that she owed an the amount of an entire tuition to Hamline University, but was it hers?

When he arrived, Anderson explained the problem. Four months ago James became pregnant. Anderson said that when that happened, the university had assessed a second bill for James’ unborn child.

“Recent research shows that playing music or stimulating fetuses in pregnant women may aid in significantly raising the child’s IQ as it grows older,” Anderson said later. “We at Hamline believe that our professors are significantly more stimulating than any classical music, which means her unborn child is reaping the benefits of a top-notch post-secondary education for free. We realized very early that this wasn’t fair to other students.”

The university’s official stance on the issue is supported by the recent adoption of the “Learning for Two” policy, which states that any pregnant woman past the first trimester must be assessed a second tuition. President Hanson stands firmly behind the new policy.

“We had toyed with the idea of prorating the tuition to alleviate some of the cost, but in the interest of fairness we decided that a full tuition was more prudent,” said Hanson. “The administration just can’t go on allowing pregnant women to take advantage of the system. The situation is no different than if an adult student tried to bring their teenage child to class with them every day. If we make this exception, where will it end?”

With added tuition coupled with the cost of prenatal care, James can scarcely afford to make such a payment. Luckily, the administration has a formal appeals system, which has allowed James to take her case to a board of several deans as well as some members of the Board of Trustees.

“We felt the utmost compassion for Ms. James when we first read her appeals,” said Board of Trustees Chair Kenneth Woodrow. “We have offered her numerous alternatives to paying the tuition, but she has refused every one of them. We can’t help someone who isn’t willing to be helped.”

One alternative the board offered James was to wear a lead-lined “diaper” with reinforced Kevlar to ensure that no sound waves could penetrate through her body to where the fetus gestates. The committee asked that James pay for the apparatus.

“We weren’t sure if sound could get through something like that, but it seemed like a pretty solid idea to me,” said Anderson. “I mean, she can’t expect us to let just anyone listen in on lecture. We have very strict admissions standards here at Hamline, and frankly, we can’t be certain that her child will meet them.”

Another suggestion from the group required a much more elaborate setup of speakers that would be placed around James’ torso. The speakers, which would be small and relatively unobtrusive, would broadcast white noise toward the fetus to keep it from gleaning any notes from lecture.

In the end, James refused either consolation, and remains hopeful that she will find a way to pay for the tuition. She has contacted several human rights groups in an attempt to start a fundraising campaign.