Don’t be surprised when reviewing your student bill this fall that most of the fee lines have disappeared. The University is remodeling the fee system to create a single all-inclusive fee to cover University operational costs.
The new “unified fee” will condense charges traditionally broken down on the student bill, like matriculation, records, recreation, technology and energy fees into one monolithic fee. Lab fees and the student activity fee, which covers expenses for student groups, will continue to be separately listed on the student bill.
The fee system is currently a breakdown which charges different amounts per credit hour for each fee. The new fee will charge one flat rate per credit hour with a slight total increase to absorb the expense created by raising student financial aid by 7 percent. This will generate an extra $85,000 annually for University financial aid.
A flat rate of $18 per credit hour to all Portland/Gorham students, $14 per credit hour for Lewiston/Auburn students and $10 per credit hour for summer session and off-campus (ITV courses) students will be applied once the Student Senate and Board of Trustees approves the new proposal.
Vice President for Student and University Life Craig Hutchinson and Chief Financial Officer Samuel Andrews approached the student senate last week with their first proposal.
At that time they were proposing an additional increase per credit hour in hopes of covering the expense of running and maintaining the Costello Sports Complex (completed in May of 1998) which has not generated as much revenue as initially thought. The project, which included the ice arena, field house and a connector building, cost $11.8 million.
“They had a variety of reactions for about an hour or so,” said Hutchinson of his meeting with the Student Senate. .”We’ll try and respond to a number of issues but we will not be able to respond to them all,” said Andrews. After listening to the senate’s concerns about the overall fee increase Andrews and Hutchinson reviewed their initial proposal.
They chose to amend the proposal leaving out the extra monies planned to cover the sports complex costs. “Craig will take from here, there and everywhere to cover the expense, as he has in the past,” said Andrews.
This dropped the flat rate down from $19 to $18 for Portland/Gorham students and from $15 down to $14 for Lewiston/Auburn students. Summer session and off campus students will still pay $10 per credit hour.
Last year the University of Maine at Orono switched their billing system from a series of fees to a unified fee like the one being proposed here at USM.
UMO Director of Budget Claire Pratt said their decision developed because of parent complaints upon receiving bills. “We were getting questioned for each fee,” said Pratt.
Mark Anderson, who was acting as interim chief financial officer at the time of the changeover said “there was no logic behind the fee charge. … a lot of parents felt we were nickel-and-diming them to death … we felt it would be a lot more honest to say ‘this is a fee we need to charge to cover the costs of education.'”
UMO’s new fee also includes whatever lab fees students may have individually been assessed based on their course load. “The burden of fees is absorbed,” said Pratt, ” it’s the cost of doing business on campus.” USM’s new fee does not include lab fees.
Christy McKinnon can be contacted at [email protected]