>>March
      30, 2001

      
Students slam professional fees

      
University of Idaho students
      blasted rising professional fees at a student fee workshop Wednesday.

      


      About 25 students, mostly ASUI officers and law school students,
      attended the meeting. Students from the law school said there
      is fierce opposition by students in the school to the proposed
      $250 per semester increase for the law college dedicated fee.
      Law school officials plan to raise this fee another $250 over
      the next two years, with a goal of a $1,200 per semester cost.

      


      Beth Monteiro, a first-year law student, said most law students
      learned about the fees just two months ago. She said students
      understand the need for increases all around, but said she and
      other students think the proposed increases are unreasonable.
      

      


      "There is a feast or famine mentality on these fees,"
      Monteiro said. She said the law school will raise fees at high
      levels every three to four years instead of spreading them out
      on a yearly basis. That means some students are hit with high
      increases while others experience no increases, which is "inherently
      unfair," she said.

      


      Law students at the meeting proposed tying the law school fee
      with the full-time fee and setting a combined increase cap of
      15 percent. This would mean that if full-time fees rose 7 percent,
      law school fees could rise a maximum of 8 percent. 

      


      Other ideas included using some sort of pricing index to regulate
      increases, spreading out the time frame of the increases or charging
      the fees only to new students.

      


      The additional fees would support new staff positions, faculty
      salaries, library needs, operation costs and scholarships. 

      


      Law students will present the State Board of Education with a
      petition stating their dissatisfaction with the fees at the board's
      April meeting where fee increases are finalized. 

      


      Undergraduate students also expressed their concerns about professional
      fees, which will be charged to upper division students in the
      College of business and economics for the first time next year.
      Architecture students currently pay similar professional fees,
      and increases have been proposed in these fees, too.

      


      Students' main concern was loose definition of a professional
      program. Currently, the State Board of Education has no clear
      definition or standard for this distinction. 

      


      "What distinguishes a professional degree from other degrees
      when we don't have a clear distinction of what it means?"
      ASUI President Leah Clark-Thomas said. 

      


      Students argued that the "professional degree" distinction
      could be applied to any major, thus allowing colleges to charge
      what some view as tuition. 

      


      Except for professional degrees, the Idaho State Constitution
      forbids the university from charging tuition to Idaho residents.
      

      


      Students in the business school face a potential $200 per semester
      fee next year, which may increase to $375 per semester the following
      year. Architecture student professional fees have a proposed
      $44 increase, the second in a series of three rises in that fee.

      


      These fees would contribute to the support of additional faculty
      within the Integrated Business Curriculum.

      


      Graduate student concerns were also voiced at the meeting by
      David Lewis, vice president of the Graduate Student Association.

      


      Lewis said graduate students' object to having to pay full-time
      fees at all. He said these fees are waived at peer institutions
      for graduate students who teach undergraduate classes. 

      


      "This puts the university at a serious disadvantage for
      recruitment," Lewis said. 

      


      He said graduate students also object to paying fees for services
      they rarely use (such as fees for athletics and, Lewis predicts,
      the Student Recreation Center).  

      


      Instead, he said graduate students should be exempt from these
      and pay like regular consumers if they want to attend a football
      game or use the recreational facilities. 

      


      "We don't want to pay fees in the first place and we certainly
      don't want to pay for things we don't use," Lewis said.

      


      Students at the meeting did not object to any of the proposed
      full-time fees, which have a proposed $122 increase. The majority
      of these fees is non-negotiable and will pay for the rec center.

      


      Other increases include money for athletics, recreational playing
      fields, Commons and Union operation expenses and ASUI concerts.

      


      In the next few weeks, UI President Bob Hoover will make the
      final recommendation for fee increases, which he will presentfor
      approval to the state board  at an April 19 meeting in Idaho
      Falls. 
 

      
news | opinion | arts | sports&leisure
contact us | ui | front | archives