Volume: 59 Issue: 6
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015
driftwood.uno.edu
ADMINISTRATION TO PROPOSE FEE INCREASE BY CHARLES NICHOLSON
Managing Editor
If you haven’t checked your student email in a week, you may not have heard of new fees being proposed by the UNO administration. On Wednesday, Sep. 23, Student Government President Joy Ballard sent out an email to all students regarding the newly proposed fees. “It is with a great sense of urgency that I write to you today. While I have not received the official proposal, last week it was brought to my attention that UNO would be proposing new fees at October’s University of Louisiana System meeting,” the email opened. According to Ballard, these new fees are the “Student Success Fee” and the “Athletic Fee.” The “Athletic Fee” is $10 per credit hour and the Student Success Fee” is $12 per credit hour, so a full-time student taking 12 credit hours would pay an additional $264 per semester. “I do not have the exact wording of the proposal because the administration will not give it to me,” said Ballard. “I’ve reached out to them several times and said, ‘I’m going to talk to students. I need the exact wording. Because if you don’t send me something soon, I’m gonna send them what I have, which is going to make everybody mad.’” Ballard had not received a response at the time she sent out the mass email. As a student government member, she felt responsible for keeping the student body informed on anything that affects them. Friday afternoon, after heavy student response, Ballard said that the fee proposal was taken off of the UL System’s October agenda, but also warned that it could be reintroduced in December. She also said that Fos will be looking for more
student involvement before the next proposal. Ballard was determined to use whatever power the administration would give her when it comes these issues, which she said isn’t much. “Instead of giving us a subcommittee of the University Budget Committee, which is what we asked
f o r , and that would have some sort of power, they instead called it the ‘SGA Student Advisory Committee.’ And there are a couple of problems with that,’” said Ballard. “First of all, putting it under the umbrella of the SGA doesn’t give us any real power. Because now it’s just a group of students, versus being a group of students under an admin-
istrative and faculty committee, so
it diminishes the power of the committee.” An issue to come from these fees, which Ballard wants to avoid, is who would claim responsibility for the fee increase. “These fees are not SGA-endorsed. And I don’t want any names surrounding me to say: ‘Oh, well the SGA committee decides how we spend
it,’” said Ballard. “Everybody knows SGA fought last year for our fees, but our fees were completely transparent, we told you exactly what we were going to spend them on. These fees don’t have that.” The other fees Ballard mentioned were the Student Self-Assessed Fees that the SGA proposed last semester. It was a flat $384 per semester divided into nine categories, which included an athletics fee as well as
academics and student experience fees. Those fees, however, specified what within those categories students would pay for. However, due to complications, SGA abandoned the fee proposal. “The athletics fee is going into the athletics program. This fee is not enough to keep athletics afloat,” said Ballard. Ballard predicts that the university may not see an end to fee increases any time soon. “Personally, I expect to see more fees from them in the future. House Bill 152, that passed over the summer, gave the university the right to raise fees as much as they see fit, as they see fit,” said Ballard. “So, this is the beginning. This is the start. Once these fees pass, for the average undergrad, we will only be $250 cheaper than LSU.” Ballard also anticipates that students could see the increase on their fee bill next semester, which raises an important issue. “Whenever you accept your loan and scholarship offers, they’re for a year. You can’t adjust them in the spring, so people have accepted loan offers based on what fall tuition was. They’re gonna be out this amount o f money come spring, because they can’t change their loan offer. That’s not fair either,” Ballard said. Before Fos dropped the proposal, she and the SGA were planning to attend the UL system’s meeting on Oct. 22, possibly paying for a bus or organize a carpool, though it is unclear if it is being postponed or altogether discontinued. Ballard said, “Our administration sees a problem, which is fair enough. But this isn’t how we fix it. This isn’t even close to how we fix it.” President Fos and Gregg Lassen, Vice President of Business Affairs, were contacted but did not respond for a comment. *Infographic based on student enrolled in 12 credit hours