Mandatory community college student fees have risen steadily over the past 20 years, outpacing the growth of tuition by a substantial margin. To date, research on postsecondary fees has been limited to public four-year colleges and universities, even as community college fees are growing faster and affecting students who are likely more price sensitive. As such, this dissertation aims to uncover what community college student fees pay for, why they are growing, and how they might impact students. These ideas frame the research questions of three studies. The first study collects data on individual student fees from a purposive sample of 96 community college websites to illustrate the types of student fees that are most common and expensive, how they are presented to students, and how these data differ across colleges that charge a greater or lesser proportion of their price as fees. The second study borrows from the insights of behavioral industrial organization, which suggests that heightened levels of competition within an oligopolistic market can increase the incentive of firms to obfuscate their total price by relying more on fees. This study uses an eleven-year panel dataset to test whether the opening of a new nearby college leads community colleges to increase the proportion of their price charged as student fees. The third and final study is rooted in the findings of the price framing literature, which have shown that consumers often under-react to the added costs of fees. This study uses an eleven-year panel dataset to determine whether student fee increases have a smaller negative impact on community college enrollment than tuition increases. This is accomplished by comparing the estimated tuition and fee elasticities of demand. Altogether, these three studies are the first to explore student fees in the American community college sector. The findings are relevant to policymaking, tuition and fee setting, financial aid and free college program design, and future scholarly research on both postsecondary student fees and price framing more generally. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]