This semester full-time UB undergraduates have seen a $52.75 increase in the comprehensive fee. The fee is a consolidation of required fees that funds various university services. This increase comes in a year when students are still adjusting to the higher tuition enacted last year and on the eve of a referendum to hike the mandatory student activity fee. While the comprehensive fee increase is necessary for certain initiatives like salary and benefits for staff, superfluous uses like resurfacing the Old Stadium should not have been included. The university's priority should be to keep overall fees down as much as possible in order to make university education affordable for everyone.
Comprehensive fees are typically hiked three to five percent each year. This year, however, the fees increased nearly eight percent (from $685.50 to $738.25, for full-time undergraduate students). The UB administration has blamed state mandates, such as required increases to salaries and fringe benefits for employees and adjustments for inflation. However, the fee hike also contains some non-essentials, including money for resurfacing the Old Stadium, more money for the athletics program, and money for "athletic training resources" as part of an "enhanced sport club environment," according to the Office of Student Affairs. These extraneous items have no place in a fee increase, especially in a year when UB faces more state mandated increases.
Refurbishing of the Old Stadium with new turf, lighting and bathrooms for the benefit of club sports is a questionable reason for an increase in fees. The number of students who participate in club sports represent a minority of students and the majority of students are picking up the tab. This is an inappropriate allocation of funds given the financial constraints many students are experiencing.
The New York Public Interest Research Group found that UB students, along with Albany, Binghamton and Stony Brook, are paying higher fees than other SUNY campuses. Students at these universities have experienced a 145 percent increase in fees since 1995. This is on top of the 2003 tuition increase of $1000, a 21 percent increase.
While student fees and tuition are on the rise, federal and state funding are decreasing, putting a college education out of the reach of some students. The federal Pell Grant, the basis of funding for students with incomes under $20,000 has fell from covering 86 percent of tuition to 39 percent. According to Nellie Mae, the average undergraduate student leaves school almost $19,000 in debt.
Given the increasingly prohibitive costs of tuition and fees, the university's first priority on the fee issue should be to keep fees down as much as possible. Refurbishing a field for a small number of students is not a justifiable cost to distribute among the student population at large. The university should give priority to mandatory contractual fees and leave extraneous fees for less pressing years.
