Is it necessary to pay for on-campus internet service? Or to get into the gym? What about a flu shot? Valid questions ?” but the answer to each one is no. You don’t have to pay, because you already have them. Wireless internet, gym access, even a flu shot (don’t worry if you’re afraid of needles ?” shots are optional) are already covered by the fees each student is charged at the beginning of the term.
Students are required to pay myriad student fees along with tuition, which are proportional to the number of credit hours a student is enrolled in. Fees are spent within the university towards things like technological resources, building repairs and student organizations, among many others.
Instruction Fees
$1152 per term
Instruction fees, as the name would suggest, help pay the men and women whose lectures you sit through daily and the people who assign you 50 pages of reading a night. These fees contribute to the university’s education and general budget. They are the most fundamental of fees. If you didn’t pay them, you would spend hours a day sitting in an uncomfortable chair, maybe in a stuffy room, without a professor.
Building Fees
$45 per term
Building fees are used towards maintenance and repairs to campus buildings, in addition to school grounds (i.e., the park blocks) and other facilities. Funds contribute to the maintenance of the classrooms students sit in, the halls they walk through, and the park benches they eat their Hot Lips pizza on. This is perhaps incentive enough to keep PSU clean and reduce any unnecessary damage to the campus, since students help to pay for it.
Technology Fees
$72 per term
Some of the most beneficial services for students are those made available by technology fees. These fees provide students with a free student e-mail and Odin account. Odin accounts grant access to WebCT, a resource used by many professors to supplement classroom information. WebCT is also the vein through which strictly web-based classes are administered. The convenience of being able to take a class or two online is made possible through the support of technology fees and cost no more than a class held on campus.
Students are able to register for classes on the PSU Information System at http://banweb.pdx.edu. This website also allows students to view their school records. In addition to the university computer labs with online capabilities, wireless internet can be accessed on laptops from almost any location on campus. While it’s not advisable to be logged onto MySpace during an especially long lecture, it is technically an option.
Incidental Fees
$167 per term
Incidental fees are spent on student groups and organizations, including sports. This particular fee enhances the life of the student body. The revenue generated by incidental fees is governed and allocated directly by students on the ASPSU Student Fee Committee. The committee is comprised of seven student council members, most of whom were elected to their position. These students hone in on the needs of student groups, sports and other organizations to serve them in whatever monetary ways they are able.
Health Service Fee
$135 per term
The health service fee allows any student access to the Student Health and Counseling Center (SHAC) and all of the services they provide, which include basic health insurance and dental benefits. With a co-payment, medical and dental care is available to these students. SHAC does offer various free services to fee payers, one being flu shots.
Fees for health services are charged only to students with a course-load of nine or more credit hours and are not an optional fee. Students taking four to eight credits a term are not automatically charged. They are still eligible to receive health services by paying the Student Health fee and purchasing extended health insurance.
Student Services Fee
$7.50 per term
Also known as the student resources fee, the smallest of the student fees brings in nearly $190,000 per term. The fee goes directly to the Student Affairs office and is used primarily to fund student resource programs such as the Information and Academic Support Center, tutoring and recently about $100,000 of the Residence Life program.
Previously, $100,000 of the student services fee was used to fund the English Department Writing Center, but funding for the writing center was shifted to general university funds after last spring’s budget cuts. Academic Affairs shifted the funds to recover funding for the Residence Life program, which had a proposed $300,000 in cuts to it.