As University administrators study the equality of mandatory fees for University students, out-of-town and part-time students concerned they are not receiving the full benefit of their fees continue to wrestle with fees they say are unfair.
Students, including those studying at satellite locations in Portland
and Charleston, pay about $471 a term in mandatory fees, about $180 of which student government uses to fund student groups. But students in Bend don’t pay the fee, and some students at the other satellite campuses say they have battled red tape in attempts to stop paying for services they don’t receive.
Portland Student Action Council, one of the groups advocating for equal
fee distribution, has tried unsuccessfully
to resolve problems obtaining
transportation and recreation center access provided to students in Eugene.
Now, group representatives say health-care fees and departmental fees are also cause for concern, compounding the group’s problems.
“It’s almost overwhelming,” PSAC Vice President Britt Nelson said.
Nelson said a concern among PSAC students is the University of Oregon’s health service fee assessed to the University’s 90 Portland students to allow them to use Portland State University’s health center. For about 10 years, students have paid the University’s health service fee to receive services that cost less for PSU students,
Nelson said.
Between fiscal years 2001-02 and 2003-04, Oregon University System fee information shows that the University’s health-care fee has been as much as $26 more per term than PSU’s. During that time, University students in Portland were charged the higher
University fee, Nelson said.
Based on those fees, a student
who studied from 2000-01 through 2001-02 would have paid about $120 more than the PSU fee assessed
during that period.
University Health Center Director Tom Ryan said he was “under the impression that (University students in Portland) paid the PSU health fee rather than our fee.”
“I would have to say that it has
always been explained to me that
we just paid each other’s fee,” he said. “That would be an excellent question if they’re actually paying our fee and something we need to look into further.”
He said when he arrived at the University, he was told the University had an arrangement with PSU in which University students in Portland paid the PSU health fee for health care
received from PSU facilities.
He said the University has similar arrangements with Oregon State
University in which “we pay each other’s health fees.”
He said the health center pays for students in Charleston to visit the doctor because there are no college health centers there.
PSAC President Gary Blackwell said the money the University’s Portland students have spent on higher fees hasn’t been given back to students.
Nelson also said PSU recently increased its prices to a level above the University’s fee. But she said PSU is charging University students $30 more per term now, instead of the $11 difference between the current University fee and the PSU fee.
Working with PSU
Steven Hopf, a contract officer for PSU, said he has been “trying to get to the bottom” of the existence of reciprocity agreements between the University and PSU regarding health fees and recreation center access.
He said he understood there was some kind of agreement regarding health fees, but “finding it in writing has been a challenge.”
He said University students are able to access the student health and counseling centers at PSU under the agreement that exists now, but PSU students in Eugene are only able to access the health center.
He said he is trying to contact people at both campuses to find a written agreement.
“It appears it’s just been a good-faith effort on the part of both schools,” he said.
Hopf said an agreement between the PSAC students and the PSU recreation center appears to be new and outside an official agreement between the two schools. He said PSU has an agreement with Southern Oregon University in which each school collects fees from the other’s students who use its facilities.
“So far, that’s not to my knowledge taking place at the UO,”
he said.
He said the schools should continue efforts to reach an agreement.
“I think if the administration on both sides wants to get this done, we should go ahead and do it,” he said.
A contract officer from the
University could not be reached
for comment.
Departmental concerns
Nelson said Architecture and Allied Arts Dean Robert Melnick has proposed a new $125 fee for all A&AA students, including architecture students. She said the fee will be assessed with 60 percent going to A&AA and 40 percent going to the respective A&AA departments of the fee-paying students. But she said questions remain regarding how much of the 40 percent will make it to Portland.
But Melnick said the 40 percent will go to students in Portland to use as they see fit, adding that A&AA administrators solicited feedback from students in Eugene and Portland and made changes based on that feedback.
“That, to me, is rational, democratic and the right thing to do,”
he said.
Blackwell said his group would like to see the arrangement in writing.
“There’s some skepticism on our side that we would not get that money unless it’s clearly worded,” he said.
Nelson also said architecture students in Portland already pay a $50-per-term fee to the architecture department used to pay off an approximately five-year mortgage on metal desks the University purchased for architecture labs at the main campus.
Yet Melnick said the $50 fee
will sunset in about two years, the remaining time needed to pay off the desks.
He said students in Portland also benefited because they received some desks.
However, Blackwell said the desks were sent to Portland because the program has grown,
not as replacements. He said
the desks in Portland are “nothing like the desks” in Eugene, describing them as “quite inferior.”
He added that some students have discussed buying hardware to
augment their desks because of structural instability.
“They’re sending inferior stuff to us, and we’re expected to figure out how to get it to work up here,” he said.
Gym access for Charleston students
Another group requesting services provided by the incidental fee
is the student council at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, which was recently denied a $1,900 funding increase by the ASUO Programs Finance Committee to purchase gym memberships.
Although the group has some gym equipment for students studying at the institute, Oregon Marine Students Association Director Ahna VanGaest said it is insufficient.
“We have a second-rate gym,” she said.
Incidental fees pay for students at the University’s main campus to access the Student Recreation Center, a facility students at the coast can’t easily access.
VanGaest said the group will keep trying to receive incidental fee funding for recreation center access.
“What it comes down to is we’re going to keep trying every year to get the funding. We believe we have every right to have a gym membership,” she said. “As students, that’s what we pay for.”
She added that more students are expected at the Charleston facility because it is now offering a marine biology major. She said a gym membership would help
attract prospective students.
She said she considered filing an appeal with the PFC but decided against it.
“I entertained the idea and decided against it, because I had heard they had over-budgeted and decided just not to waste my time,” she said.
She said relations between OMSA and the ASUO have been smooth during her two years with the program, although the group
is still trying to recover from
a “huge budg
et cut” it underwent several years ago. She added
that some ASUO members seemed to misunderstand OMSA.
“I felt it was really hard to make ASUO in our PFC meeting understand where we’re coming from,” VanGaest said. “I really felt like we didn’t connect on that really basic issue of how we’re different from most ASUO groups.”
During the PFC meeting, Senator Kevin Day said: “I don’t think
any student takes full advantage of the incidental fee, and so I don’t think any money should be taken out because (the OMSA students) are not taking full advantage of their fee,” according to a Jan. 12 Emerald article.
VanGaest said OMSA would “stick with this one issue for now” to “see if the ASUO is willing to go in this direction.” If the group doesn’t receive gym funding next year, she said it will go to the department for help.

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