At the moment, if you set a course to require an access code, the feature doesn't work and is bypassed entirely when a course requires payment.  This seems like a significant limitation in functionality.

There are many situations where course administrators need to restrict enrollment to specific individuals and require payment—these two things shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. For example, when offering limited spots to waitlisted users or granting exclusive early access, we need a way to ensure only approved individuals can enroll and pay for the course.

Right now, the only way to use the access code is if the course is set to $0, which defeats the purpose when payment is required. The current workaround of unpublishing the course and sharing direct links is not secure or scalable.

It would make far more sense if the system allowed administrators to enforce the access code regardless of the course price—giving us the option to control both who can enroll and how they pay.

Please consider updating this functionality to better support real-world enrollment scenarios.