ASUI President Max Cowan said students expect more from their education at the University of Idaho than just the piece of paper at the finish line.
Philip Vukelich | Argonaut
ASUI President Max Cowan discusses the proposed tuition and fee increases with an ASUI senator in his office on Wednesday.
But for students this means paying a little more for those services intended to enhance the student experience.
A portion of the undergraduate student bill, known as the dedicated student activity fee, will likely increase 1 percent as part of a total proposed 4.7 percent increase to undergraduate tuition and fees for the 2014-2015 academic year.
“The dedicated student activity fee is important in that it provides for many different programs that are important for student success that create an active and engaged and lively campus life,” Cowan said.
The fee — which will total $1,084.04 per student with the $10.24 increase — is distributed among programs that are deemed beneficial for the student experience. For example, each full-time undergraduate student pays $8 per year to Violence Prevention Programs for its services. That $8 per student then makes up a several thousand dollar portion of that program’s budget.
The fee covers and funds things such as the Student Recreation Center, ASUI, student admittance to athletic events and many other student-oriented programs and services on campus.
ASUI initially proposed a 1.55 percent increase, with concern for covering a 2 percent Change in Employee Compensation for employees in departments funded by the student activity fee. Cowan said if a CEC were to occur, a 1 percent increase will now be enough to cover the difference, thanks to state appropriations.
In determining the necessary fee increase, the Associated Student Fee Committee completed a review of all programs that receive funding from the dedicated student activity fee.
The committee recommended ASUI reallocate $8 per student per year that was previously received by New Student
“Previously, the new student orientation fee was assessed to every student $4 per semester and then there was an additional cost for every participant,” Cowan said. “Instead, we’ve decided to streamline that process by incorporating it into a single fee that a student pays during their first semester on campus. They only see that fee once. We used the $4 that was previously assessed to fund other changes in the student activity fee to better serve students as they continue their time on campus.”
The reallocation allows ASUI to provide additional funding to various programs and service, without actually increasing the dedicated student activity fee.
In addition, the committee recommended to remove $2 of student fees from the marching band. The committee recommended the $2 be applied to tuition costs to enable funding of marching band scholarships through the general education budget, rather than the student activity fee. The change will not reduce the total cost of tuition and fees to students. Instead that portion of the activity is freed up to reallocate funding to other programs.
“We’re reducing the band fee to move the band scholarship from a student-fee funded item and incorporating them into the general education fund, so that they’re funded by general education instead of student activity fees,” Cowan said.
The committee also heard requests for additional funding from three student-fee funded departments, but determined that approving the requests would not be financially responsible in the face of more important increases.
“Though all of these were exciting new opportunities and would serve students at the University of Idaho, it was the committee’s interest to try and maintain the fee with a relatively small increase,” Cowan said. “The requests that are contained for increases were more pressing concerns for mandatory compliance issues, for maintaining the excellence of student retention programing and for maintaining operations as usual at the University of Idaho.”
The requests included additional fees per student of $5 for Outdoor Recreation facilities, $1 for the Soil Stewards Student Farm and $3 for the Sustainable Moscow Area Regional Transit to fund fixed route service. Although the requests were denied, Cowan said it does not mean those services weren’t deemed valuable to students.
“We want a community that allows us to grow and thrive … we want a community that engages us as whole people and not just as readers of textbooks and in order to do that, it takes more than just a general education budget,” Cowan said. “The difference between what students need from their education and what students want from their education is what the student activity fee is all about.”
Kaitlyn Krasselt can be reached at [email protected]