Student fees increase more than $35
Student fees cover services that the University normaly wouldn’t pro
In four years, student fees have increased 44 percent. They were $287 in Spring 2004 and will soon be $414.45.
By Brenna Hawley (Contact)
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
When students pay their tuition bills for next semester, the required campus fees section will have increased more than $35 from last semester. Student Senate implements the fees each semester to provide services to KU students.
Fees were changed during the last year to take the total fees per semester from 377.75 to 414.45.
Student fees for Fall 2008
Student Senate Activity Fee, $17.50
Student Union Fee
Building Fee, $41.00
Renovation Fee, $12.00
Student Health Fee
Operations, $110.00
Facilities, $1.50
Child Care Facility Construction Fee, $4.00
Women’s & Non-Revenue Intercollegiate Sports Fee, $40.00
Student Recreation Fee
Recreational Services, $41.20
Recreational Facilities, $29.30
Sports Clubs, $3.00
Facilities & Maintenance, $1.00
Student Media Fee, $5.00
Campus Safety Fee, $1.50
Educational Opportunity Fee, $6.00
Campus Transportation Fee, $56.00
Campus Environmental Improvement, $4.00
Legal Services for Students, $10.20
Newspaper Readership Program Fee, $4.00
Multicultural Resources Center Fee
Construction Fee, $3.50
Services, Operations & Programs, $1.50
Multicultural Education Fund, $1.50
Long-term Maintenance Fund, $0.25
Student Union Activity Fee, $5.50
SafeRide Fee, $10.00
Wireless Implementation Fee, $5.00
Total: $414.45 per semester
Source: Student Senate Treasury
Alex Porte, Great Falls, Va., sophomore and next year’s Student Senate treasurer, said fees had diverse purposes. He said certain fees kept the price of the sports pack down and paid for student health services and the Student Recreation Fitness Center.
Fees were a large issue during this year’s Student Senate election, and Porte said students needed to be aware of where their money was going.
“Students as a rule are more fiscally conservative because it’s their money,” he said.
Porte said Student Senate raised fees in two cases: inflation and a significant increase in services.
“There’s no way to get around inflation, but we want to curb it by being financially responsible,” Porte said.
Increases in service have caused two fees to go up and one new fee to be implemented for next semester.
Student Senate voted during the last full Senate meeting on April 2 to raise the Student Union Activities Fee by 50 cents for next year.
The increase is to cover rising talent fees of visiting artists and celebrities.
Senate also incresed the KU Transportation fee by $6.20 for next year. Margretta de Vries, senior administrative associate for the Parking Department, said that fee increase was to maintain the current services of the bus system and that without the increase routes would have been cut. She said the night campus route would still have to be cut because the department did not get as much of an increase as it wanted.
The only fee the student body voted for was to pay $20 to provide a fare-free bus system to students.
Porte said the campus transportation fee was $16 in 2004 but next semester it would be $56.
Aaron Quisenberry, associate director of the Student Involvement and Leadership Center, said student fees subsidized services the University of Kansas didn’t provide. He said that if students felt a service was important enough they could ask for a fee to cover it.
Porte said an example was the $8 students pay for Legal Services for Students. He said because of the fee, students could visit Legal Services for Students and get free legal help with anything from drawing up legal documents to filing taxes.
Porte said some fees were used for building improvements on campus, such as the wireless implementation fee and the Multicultural Resource Center construction fee.
He said the wireless fee, which is $5, paid for the wireless expansion taking place throughout campus. The expansion is upgrading services in buildings all over campus, most recently the Art and Design Building, Blake Hall, Lindley Hall and Robinson Center.
Porte said the Multicultural Resource Center construction fee, which is $3.50, paid the entire cost of the new Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center next to the Kansas Union and also for longterm maintenance.
In four years, student required campus fees have increased 44 percent, going from $287 in Spring 2004 to $414.45 next semester. Fees are paid by semester.
—Edited by Patrick De Oliveira
Discussion
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Look out! your student fees will go up even more next year!
Remember that pool that they keep talking about building? We're going to raise your fees to do that. Look for a repeal on the sunset of the Boathouse fee, which is set to expire in 2011. That would have been $15 back in students pockets. Expect additional increases, because $15 isn't going to get the job done. I will vote this down, unless they want to put it before students as a referendum. Then you guys can vote it down, because do we really need a pool that badly that we have to pay more money to build it? honestly?
Also! expect parking and transit to come running back to us to ask for more money because our buses are "at capacity" and they NEED MOAR BUSES because they are "free". I liked the idea of a fare free bus system, the student body seemed to as well. But don't expect me to approve any raise in fees; parking and transit should have had their bases covered and have the necessary resources to handle an increase in demand (because that's what we'll see)
We'll probably increase some other fees, look for a fight over the Campus Safety fee because they need more money for Jaywalk. Hopefully that works, because it hasn't in the past.
Look for more fights over Athletics fees next year!
Isn't our student senate grand?
Athletics can pay its own way.
Rumor has it that many students came to college to study, not go to ballgames.
Sweet Lew has them rolling in so much cash that they can fund the non-revenue sports.
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