Student football tickets and rides from the Lane Transit District may seem free with the simple flash of a student body card.
But students pay for these and many other seemingly free University perks in the form of the student incidental fee even before they step on campus.
The fee is separate from term tuition, but is part of a student’s regular University accounting bill. Many people don’t even realize that they’re paying, what they’re paying for or how much they shell out each term.
Each student will pay $171.75 per term, creating a total pot of $8,032,290, Student Sen. Mary Elizabeth Madden said. Besides football tickets and city bus passes, the fee funds the more than 100 student groups and many parts of the EMU.
Each winter, those 100-plus student groups must present their budgets for the next year to the Programs Finance Committee, of which Madden was chairwoman last year. The PFC, composed of students voted into office during the ASUO election, approves or modifies each budget, then sends it to University President Dave Frohnmayer for final approval, although Frohnmayer rarely changes the PFC decision.
The EMU and the Athletic Department also have committees that dole out the fee, but both of those are composed of administrators and students.
Incidental fee money is also dispersed through ballot measures in the ASUO election held winter term. Many ballot measures ask for a general increase in the fee to pay for a new staff position or fund a new project on campus.
ASUO President Nilda Brooklyn called the fee one of the most powerful tools students have to shape their experience on campus. She said the programs and projects the fee funds are where students learn skills such as leadership, finance and planning that will help them in real world careers.
She added that the fee allows a variety of viewpoints to exist for students to channel their ideas and creativity.
“It gives direct power to the students,” Brooklyn said. “You can have the same fee funding such juxtapositions.”
Groups ranging from the Multicultural Center and student unions to the Ballroom Dance and Star Wars clubs all receive funds from the fee.
But former Oregon Commentator Editor Emeritus William Beutler said the fee doesn’t benefit all students equally. Beutler debated former ASUO President Jay Breslow on the fee last year for a class in the Honors College.
Beutler said that with a small population involved in student government and student groups — about 10 percent of University students vote in the ASUO election each year — some unfairly pay money to an infrastructure on campus that will never affect or benefit them.
“It all boils down to the word ‘mandatory,’” Beutler said. “Most students get nothing out of the ASUO, so why should they pay for it?”
Brooklyn said she transferred to the University of Oregon from the University of Washington, which didn’t have a fee. After seeing both schools, she said she knows her real education has come from working with the MCC, ASUO and other groups here that are funded by the fee.
She added that although the majority of students don’t vote for the people and programs that affect their fee, or participate in those groups, she believes the fee system must exist to create a “rich landscape” where students can join the groups or start their own — and that every student should pay.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. The Court ruled that students should pay fees even if they are funding groups promoting ideas that clash with theirs. During the 1995-96 school year, Scott Southworth took the University of Wisconsin to court, claiming that he should not have to fund WISPIRG, that state’s version of OSPIRG.
The Court said the fee helps universities fulfill a vital mission “to facilitate a wide range of speech.”
“If the university reaches this conclusion, it is entitled to impose a mandatory fee to sustain an open dialogue to these ends,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the decision.
Brooklyn said she would like to see the fee system expand so students have more control over hirings and firings in the EMU, for instance. Although she doesn’t advocate students supervising staff, she said she would like to see a new system created where students have a say in those positions.
Madden said this year’s PFC will be completely new, with the exception of her position. The PFC is composed of student senators, elected students to the committee, and an appointment made by Brooklyn and ASUO Vice President Joy Nair.
To help prepare, Madden said the PFC will go through mock hearings fall term and invite groups to participate, alleviating some of the stress and confusion over what happens in a budget hearing.