Emptying your pocket

When it comes to giving up a chunk of income, most people are resistant.

We won’t let the man take our money without our consent, and we want to know where our money is going and why. No taxation without representation is our national fiscal mantra, and come financial crises or economic doom, we’re not planning on letting it go anytime soon.

Yet as vigilant as we might be when it comes to the federal government feeling around in our pocketbooks, we as students are surprisingly passive when it comes to our own higher-education tax: the student fee.

Whether it is because we’re quick to let Mom deal with our finances or educational accounting leaves us dazed, few students pay attention to the line on their bursar bill entitled “student fees.” This semester alone, each full-time student will dish out a hefty $431.52 in mandatory student fees.

Divided between the bus fee, the health fee, the technology fee and the activity fee, the money that is collected through fees goes to support services and organizations that benefit IU-Bloomington students. But in these tough economic times, $400-plus is a lot of money to hand over blindly to the powers that be.

So, where exactly is your money going, and who decides what it funds?

The responsibility of allocating student fee money falls on the Committee for Fee Review, a group made up of nine student representatives, two student co-chairs and faculty advisers. The committee hears proposals from all campus organizations and student groups that want to receive fee money, and then it makes recommendations to the president about how the money should be distributed.

“The way that we do it is fairly novel,” IU Student Association president Luke Fields said about the process for student review. Fields, who co-chairs the committee with the president of the Graduate and Professional Students’ Organization, emphasized how few universities give students such a say in their fee money.

“The fact that students review is unheard of,” Fields said “Students are trusted with this.” 

And they really are. Although the committee technically only makes recommendations, the committee’s student activity fee recommendations have been adjusted only once since 1979, IU Spokesman Larry MacIntyre said.

Fields encouraged students to contact him with their concerns about fee allocation.
The committee’s meetings are also open to the public so concerned students can take a part in the process.

Even though students are heavily involved in the process, the question remains: Is our money being put to good use? And beyond the committee, do students have a say in what we pay for?

The majority of student fee funds – 82 cents out of every student fee dollar – currently goes to student health, technology and transportation, and in most cases students participate in the allocation process.

Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of the Health Center Dr. Hugh J. Jessop said that the advisory committee that determines how student fees are allocated involves undergraduate and graduate student representatives.

The organizations that receive student activity fee money have similar provisions for involving students in the fee-allocation process. The IU Auditorium, which receives four cents of every student’s activity fee, uses survey tools, focus groups and student volunteer input to gauge student response to different events, said IU Auditorium director Doug Booher.

“We measure student participation by the number of student tickets issued, number of students attending master classes and artist interactions and student response to our event feedback submissions from IUauditorium.com,” Booher said.

For organizations that receive student fees, this money is often necessary for their continued existence.

Clare Krusing from IUSTV said obtaining fee money is critical for her organization.

“The funds we receive from student fees is responsible for covering the overwhelming majority of our expenses,” Krusing said.

Union Board Vice President for Programming Brian Holthouse agreed.
“Union Board uses student fee money for our entire operating budget,” Holthouse said. “Very few of our programs are ticketed, so we use a portion of everyone’s student fee to bring programming to campus.”

Even for all of the good that student activity fee money does, some might take issue with the use of student money to fund services that only reach a small percentage of students.

For example, student child care services served only 230 families in the spring of 2007, yet every IU student was required to pay $0.39 for it. Likewise, all undergraduates pay $0.94 for the graduate and professional student organization.

Then, there is also the issue of making students aware of the services that their money funds. Few students take advantage of the University Information Technology Services training courses (technology: $192.33 of each student’s fee), the consulting that Student Legal services provides (SLS: $9.98) or the free psychological sessions at the Health Center (Health Center: $105.76).

Whether you agree with paying for these services or not, it is important that students have an opinion about how their money is used. In the same way that people are critical about how the government is spending its tax dollars, we must take a critical look at how our student fee money is being spent.

A Committee for Fee Review year presents the perfect opportunity.

Since the committee only convenes biannually, this is our chance to have a say about how our funds are being spent. E-mail the committee members, talk to leaders in the organizations that you care about and make sure that they know what programs are and are not important to keep.

IU gives us a unique opportunity to have a say in how our money is spent, and we must use it, or else the only people we have to blame for poor use of our funds are ourselves.