New program fees implemented

Newly instituted fees totaling $450,000 will be collected from College of Arts and Sciences students this year.

These new fees include a $100 fee for the Pre-med/Pre-dental program, a $50 fee for Communication majors and a $100 fee for students enrolled in a Developmental Math course which includes Elementary Algebra I, II and Intermediate Algebra.

Some of these fees are listed as laboratory fees.

Unlike a laboratory fee, these new fees are not directly funding the programs for which they are intended, according to Associate Dean of Natural Science and Mathematics Geoffrey Martin.

The new fees that have been introduced for the 2010-2011 academic year in the CAS will be going to what is known as the general fund for the university.

The amount of money being charged for each new CAS fee is based on a five percent budget cut the college had to work with, according to Martin.

Martin said the college could either cut its budget or increase revenue through these types of fees.

Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Scott Scarborough, said this money is needed to balance the university's budget since UT has been receiving less money from the state of Ohio. The state's share of instruction at UT decreased by 0.6 percent, or $768,000, this budget year.

"Every time the state cuts our budget, we have a choice to make," Scarborough said. "Do we cut the program's resources or do we find a way to increase the resources to maintain the program. Generally it comes out of the students' pockets."

Scarborough said had these fees not been implemented, staff and other services students in these programs receive may have needed to be cut.

According to Scarborough, these new fees are not intended to bring additional resources to the programs, but are meant to sustain what is already there.

Scarborough said these new fees are more like tuition increases rather than a lab fee.

These fees are intended to be permanent.

Although the state of Ohio sets parameters that restrict the amount of tuition and general fees that can be raised by a public university, a university has the authority to introduce new fees that cover a specific, unique cost of a particular program according to Scarborough.

All of the money from the new fees goes to the general fund.

The general fund includes revenue from tuition, general fees, and money allocated to the university by the state.

Money in the general fund can be spent at the university's discretion, Scarborough said.

The programs being charged with these fees are deemed as "high cost" programs that require a higher proportion of the university's general budget to fund, according to Scarborough.

"In some way the fee and tuition structure at universities, both public and private, are such that some people pay more, some people pay less. There's a cost subsidy that occurs so that the whole, the university sustains itself," Scarborough said.

Associate Vice President of University Communication and Marketing Operations Tobin Klinger said that one determining element of the fees is not only the higher cost of certain education programs but the students' anticipated income upon graduation.

"There's a certain mindset out there that if I'm an engineering student, it costs more to educate me as an engineering student," he said. "My earning potential when I graduate from the college of engineering, say it [is] $100,000. If I'm in foreign language, my earning potential is $35,000 when I graduate from college. So [engineering students] should pay more."

The CAS is following a direction previously taken by the College of Business Administration, Pharmacy, Nursing, Engineering, and Health and Human Services in order to meet requested budget cuts proposed by the administration.

These colleges instituted "upper division" fees meant to cover "higher cost" programs.

What program a college associates with the fee, according to Scarborough, was a part of what they believed would be best understood by their students.

Many students in the CAS being charged a new fee are unsure how the money from this fee is paying for the program and are confused when they see it on their bill.

"The first thing I thought of was, ‘what am I paying for'," said Amanda Kitson, a junior double majoring in biology and women's and gender studies, who noticed the $100 Pre-med/Pre-dental fee on her bill.

Kitson believes the fee is only justified during a pre-med student's senior year when they will need the service the most. Right now, she only uses the pre-med program's service twice a year.

"If they are only going to hire one pre-med adviser, I don't think students should have to spend the extra $100," she said.

Eric So, the president of the pre-medical honor society Alpha Epsilon Delta and a senior majoring biology, said many other pre-med students have complained about the new fee.

So said he hopes that UT will tell students exactly how the money from this fee is being spent.

"We deserve the right to know what we are paying for," So said. "We pay a tax for services. We should get a return for paying this tax."

The Chairman of the Mathematics Department Paul Hewitt said some students have been calling and questioning him about the fee.

Hewitt said he does not know where the money from this fee goes and it has not shown up in the department's budget.

Alexandria Maynard, a junior majoring in paralegal studies, is enrolled in Intermediate Algebra this semester.

Maynard said she does not see the purpose of the developmental math fee.

Scarborough said the hardest part of the new CAS fees is explaining how the fee is going directly to the program it is listed for.

"It certainly goes to a pool that either directly or indirectly is supporting the program," he said.

Although Scarborough said the fees are permanent, they are always up for re-examination.