Friday, February 20, 2009
Students paid $414.70 in required campus fees this year, and for the first time in nearly a decade, that number won’t increase next year.
Student Body President Adam McGonigle announced Thursday that Student Senate would not be raising student fees by any percentage.
“We want to be sensitive to the pocketbooks of students who can’t afford any increase and who are already struggling,” McGonigle said.
The Kansas Board of Regents said in a December meeting that it only had plans to increase tuition by a minimal amount next year. Required campus fees are figured into any tuition increase approved by the Regents. By not requesting a fee increase, McGonigle said, all of the increases proposed by the Regents would go to tuition, which directly funds academics.
“In these economic times we have to prioritize academics over campus life aspects of the University right now,” McGonigle said. “We’ve had a lot of fee increases that have done great things for the University but it’s not responsible to do that right now. Not when teachers are losing their jobs.”
Some students say they are pleased the University has decided to do something about rising fee costs.
“I think that’s a great compromise that the University has reached,” Kayleigh Nichols, Independence senior, said.
Certain organizations on campus, however, will need an increased budget in order to maintain the level of services they currently provide to students. These organizations include the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center and Watkins Memorial Health Center.
In order to make up for those costs without raising fees, McGonigle said, all required campus fees would be closely scrutinized over the next month by a fee review board of student senators. Some fees would have to be cut or reduced in order to provide more funding to those organizations which need an increased budget.
There are several fees that can’t be reduced because they fund construction projects that have not yet been paid off. Some of these include the Student Union building fee and the fee to fund recreational facilities.
McGonigle recommended to the fee review committee that the campus media fee and the campus safety fee be closely scrutinized. If both fees were to be cut it would free up $5.75 from each student’s semester total. That money could be redistributed to Watkins and the recreation center.
Brian Hardouin, Topeka graduate student and chairman of the Fee Review Committee, said those fees were being looked at because they did not directly affect people’s jobs.
— — Edited by Liz Schubauer
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Comments
Campus fees will not increase next year
$414.70 a year? Really.
Actually, since required campus fees are $423.35 a semester, the total is actually $846.70 per year.
Get the facts straight and it may be more of a shock when reading the article. Kudos on the research!
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