Students to give input on Tier II tuition rates
Utah State University President Noelle Cockett has formed a committee of student leaders to make recommendations for increases and spending of Tier ll tuition, which individual universities control.
Proposed Tier II tuition increases must be approved by the university president, the university Board of Trustees and the statewide Board of Regents before they can be enacted, but students generally are not part of the approval process.
“The fact that (Cockett) is asking for our opinion says a lot about her,” said Josh Johnson, the USU Student Association diversity and clubs vice president.
Though the committee was originally set to include three members from the executive council and three from the academic senate – Johnson felt it was important that his position is included to represent LGBTQ and minority students. However, thoughts on that matter varied by different student leaders, some who thought the committee should be small.
“I do understand there are diversities and minorities throughout the University,” said Dexton Lake, the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences senator. “I feel that if I am going to trust Senator (Deidra) Thomas to represent my college as part of AS as a whole, we can expect VP (Sam) Jackson to represent minority and diversity and keep it the same size as it is. I feel that if we aren’t going to add more senators, I don’t believe VP Johnson needs to be on this.”
Other senators disagreed and thought more representation would be positive.
“I don’t understand the difference two students would be,” said Sierra Wise, the senator for the Caine College of the Arts. “I understand two people is two more people, but at the same time I understand that having more representation wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
After Lake’s comments, Lake and Thomas motioned to remove Johnson from the committee. However, the motion failed and Johnson’s position remained.
The bill to form the committee was discussed for weeks in both the Academic Senate and Executive Council, and after several readings and amendments to the bill, USUSA decided to include the executive vice president, senate pro tempore, an appointed senator, the graduate studies senator, the student advocate vice president and the organizations and diversity vice president.
“This deals with money for all students, diverse students are marginalized systemically,” Johnson said, “I felt very strongly that my position needed to be on there.”
The committee will meet at Cockett’s discretion, but its input will be requested for all Tier II tuition increases.
“It’s student’s money, this is an awesome opportunity to have students sit on a committee like this,” said Jaren Hunsaker, USUSA president.
Tier II tuition, levied by individual universities rather than the state legislature, is considered “supplementary capital” to the money designated by the state legislature, according to the Utah System of Higher Education website.
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