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Student Fees Report

Writer's picture: Megan BradyMegan Brady

View the full report here.


Introduction

During the 2019-2020 academic year, members of the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Residence Hall Association (RHA) recognized a critical need to educate students about the fees that they pay, both mandatory and non-mandatory.


Despite undergraduate students paying fees every semester, many students do not understand the breakdown of the mandatory fees and where they go. Inspired by the SGA’s “Report on Student Fees” during the 2017-2018 academic year, we hope to continue their work of promoting transparency and education around fees. This report showcases both mandatory and non-mandatory fees and will hopefully give undergraduate students an understanding of where their fee money is going.


In order to compile this report, we used data provided from individual departments. The data majority comes from student fee request forms provided for the Committee for the Review of Student Fees (CRSF). As you will see, the report details how much undergraduate students pay and how each department spends its fee money. This is meant to give undergraduate students a better idea of what services they directly support financially at the university.


We want to clarify that we relied on the departments to be transparent, clear, and accurate with the information they provided us. Not every department showcases their data the same, leading to some gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the fees. However, we thank every department and various different administrators for working with us throughout this process.


We would be remiss not to talk about how COVID-19 has impacted the fees and the fee process. Since the university closed down, it has since been announced that students will receive refunds for both mandatory and non-mandatory fees. In the report we will highlight the refunds resulting from the university closing.


Although we use the FY2020 working budgets for each department, the data we provide is intended to serve as a model of how the department acts year to year. Variations in the departmental budgets and inaccuracies can be attributed to the impacts of COVID-19 refunds on departmental revenues and expenditures, but also because of overall and continuous changes in operations for each department.


This report’s goal is not to explicitly call-out or criticize any department for their collection or use of fee money. Instead, SGA and RHA hope to empower students with education to understand their fees and to be able to better advocate on where they want their fee money to go in future years.


Sincerely,


Ireland Lesley, Student Body President

Emily Berry, Residence Hall Association President

Madhulika C. Nallani, SGA Student Fees Coordinator

Alec McCarren, RHA Student Fees Coordinator

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