Tuition to increase for second year in a row
On March 4, Utah State University Interim President Alan L. Smith and USUSA President Matt Richey announced a 3% increase in tuition and several increases to student fees at the Truth-in-Tuition hearing held in the Evan N. Stevenson Ballroom in the TSC.
These increases come from various needs across campus. Aggie Shuttle is requesting an increase of $1.73. The music and theater departments are receiving a total fee increase of $3.30.
USU will continue to remain one of the most expensive schools in the state with this increase, alongside the University of Utah and Westminster College.
According to Smith, these fee and tuition increases, which have been approved by the USUSA Executive Council and the student fee board, are not set in stone until they go through the Utah System of Higher Education board on March 17.
Smith explained where certain tuition increases stem from.
“Every year, the legislature determines the rate that state employees will receive, and in the case of higher education, we don’t get 100% of that amount. We get 75% of the amount, and then we’re expected as an institution to cover the rest of that, so that typically will go into the tuition request,” Smith said.
The event was broadcast for statewide campuses to participate. Students were invited to attend and encouraged to ask questions, although there were no student fee increases to statewide campuses.
One fee discussed for the Logan campus was the $3 fee increase for the Student Nutrition Access Center, also known as SNAC. The fee was voted for by the student body in the most recent USUSA elections cycle and passed with a 75.06% vote. SNAC requested the fee increase to grow the variety of foods they offer to students.
Executive Vice President Brooklyn Ward chairs the Academic Senate and student fee board. President Richey gave her a shout-out and commemorated her work for student fees at the Truth-in-Tuition hearing.
“My hands are kind of all over that process from the beginning with appointing students at large to the student fee board. It’s kind of my job to spearhead that and be sure that we’re selecting students that represent lots of areas of campus, lots of demographics for students, so that in those few board meetings, we have lots of perspectives to pull from,” Ward said.
Ward further explained Utah State has a notably well-ironed-out process for student fee hearings and assembling the board, which consists of many campus voices.
“It was important to me to get a different range of classes, so freshmen to seniors, and we have graduate student representation on there as well with our graduate senator, and just making sure that we had a variety of majors — variety of involvement opportunities. We had some athletes. We had some Greek life,” Ward said. “I just wanted to encourage people who might not be normally involved with events committees or the HURD to get involved in this way because it’s a different, unique opportunity to say that you were part of the student fee board.”