Editorial: Soaring student fees limit access to higher education

It is time for the newest wave of charges to stop. Students, instead of seeing massive hikes in tuition, are being charged fees at rampant rates–from a $202 incidental fee that pays for student groups, to an $87 technology fee that pays for our computers.

Why then are student fees so high? They have long been thought of as the savior of funding problems in Oregon universities. Until Oregon schools see public funding levels that can pay for the necessary administrative services, fees will continue to pry money out of students’ hands.

This year, students in Oregon will pay the most student fees in Oregon University System history. There has been at least one fee that has jumped by 20 percent at Portland State for the last three years. Some fees have skyrocketed by this amount for multiple years in a row.

But the majority of complaints about the epidemic of the soaring cost of college go toward tuition. People complain about the close to $20,000 of average debt per student, and reference the ease with which students a generation before us paid tuition.

And it is true: tuition makes up the majority of the cost of college and the majority of our debt.

It is fees, however, that have seen the highest percentage jumps in recent years. Although state and school officials have tried to cut the costs of college by halting tuition hikes at times, fees continue to rise. Whether or not administrators and student leaders are intentionally trying to use student fees to make up for the costs that tuition does not cover, the fees are used as such.

It is fees such as the indirect cost–a surcharge of the student incidental fee that is intended to pay for paperwork created by student groups–that have made college unaffordable. The indirect cost had previously been paid for by the state, and should continue to be paid for by the state.

Luckily, the surcharge was limited to 1 percent of the entire incidental fee. Still, that 1 percent totaled $100,000, which helped create the largest student incidental fee Portland State has ever seen. When charged to PSU students, the total for the incidental fee (which pays for all student groups, including athletics and the Vanguard) is over $12 million.

It is because of charges like the indirect cost–charges that should be paid for by public money—that students are taking on the extra burden of the cost of college.

The New York Times reported on the increasing costs of student fees at the University of Oregon on Sept. 4, citing a new energy fee that administrators have implemented to pay for the rising utility bill costs. The article reported a common complaint among administrators: that there isn’t enough state funding to pay for everything. So they look to student fees.

Public access to higher education is more important now than ever. The increase of private student fees to pay for services that should be paid for with public money needs to stop. It is making public access to higher education more difficult every day.