The Tuition Strategies and Fees Committee began its Tuesday meeting with a reminder of the committee’s meeting purpose from Andy Hurtig, former Student Governing Association president, Tuition Strategies and Fees Committee co-chair and senior in accounting.
“Obviously we have a broad diversity of different concepts for fees, but we’re considering the merit of the fee, especially when it comes to the academic colleges,” Hurtig said. “We’re considering kind of the due diligence of students in their college and then the overall principle of trying to advance the university in terms of excellence, but also remaining affordable and accessible to students inside the state and outside the state.”
The committee then began its discussion of the undergraduate advising fee and the College of Arts and Sciences fee, which also involves advising.
Candice Wilson, graduate student in agricultural economics and committee member, said she was approached by advisers after they heard about the proposed advising fee. They told her they would not be in favor of raising the fee for various reasons.
“(After being quoted in a Collegian article), I had faculty not even in my college talk to me about it and say how much they opposed it and how much people they’ve worked with opposed it and that they felt it was contradictory to things they were doing in their college,” Wilson said.
Some advisers have brought it to the committee’s attention that an increase in advising fees could be misleading to students, as much of the funds would actually be going to advising softwares, whereas students may be under the impression that the fee funds would pour directly into hiring more advisers, according to Trenton Kennedy, committee member, student body vice president and sophomore in entrepreneurship.
The committee then compared the advising systems among colleges.
“I think that, just between the different colleges, a one-size-fits-all model isn’t in students’ best interest in advising,” Wilson said.
Pat Bosco, committee member and vice president for student life and dean of students, said advising tactics on K-State’s campus vary because of the university’s tendencies toward individualism.
“There is, on our campus, in our culture, sometimes there is a resistance to centralizing,” Bosco said. “We have a strong history of decentralizing, listening to our various voices. That’s part of what K-State does, so anytime you think about centralizing anything, there’s immediate concern that we’re going to lose our ability to make the impact be as intentional as we’d like it to be.”
The committee unanimously voted to approve the motion to increase the Arts and Sciences fee by $8.70 per credit hour.
The committee then moved on to discuss the College of Business’ proposal of a $15-per-semester fee increase, which was not voted on by the meeting’s end. Hurtig said the matter would be discussed again at the committee’s next meeting.
