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NEWS
| NOVEMBER 30, 2005
Tuition
SC presents counter plan
The Executive Board created the
proposal in response to the flat-rate tuition proposal.
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| The Shorthorn: Andrew Campbell |
| Members of the Student Congress
assemble Tuesday to discuss the flat-rate tuition
proposal. |
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By Megan
Magaña
The Shorthorn staff
Student Congress approved a counter proposal to the flat-rate tuition
system Tuesday night before presenting it to the Tuition Review
Committee.
SC President Josh Sawyer addressed senators and said that currently,
students can see where their fees go in their tuition bill but that
with the new system, students won’t have that a lot of that
will be lost.
Sawyer introduced a counter proposal created by the SC Executive
Board in response to the proposal for the move to a flat-rate system.
SC’s proposal would be in accordance with the proposed flat-rate
system. The counter proposal calls for keeping the Tuition Review
and the Fee Oversight committees but having a hierarchy in which
the Tuition Review Committee would align over the Fee Oversight
Committee, which in turn would be responsible for all other fees.
“That allows us to still have some kind of say of where money
goes,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer said SC is not opposed to the proposed system to an extent,
but “we still need to have some kind of fee structure under
that.”
He said the flat-rate system is supposed to make it easier for students
to budget how much their education would cost but that it sets a
cap at a certain number of hours.
Sawyer said one concern was student life fees, as the Student Service
Fee Advisory Committee is the main source of funding for Student
Affairs. He said the SC counter proposal is a way to save student
life fees.
“They will go where they are supposed to go,” he said.
He said the university has been lacking in funds, but the large
increase in tuition “is not necessarily going to anything
new.”
SC Vice President Zac Sanders said SC is trying to get other new
things to justify the tuition increase besides new hires, rising
energy costs, staff raises and merit scholarships.
“We’re trying to iron out the things we can possibly
control,” he said. “We want to be able to see new things
if we’re paying more.”
Sanders said students need a good education and good faculty and
staff but that the increase that students are paying should not
necessarily go toward faculty recruitment.
“We want to protect student voice and input,” he said.
“We want to make sure [SSFAC] stays intact.”
SC Program Director Zach Walker, who also serves as SSFAC chair,
said there didn’t seem to be any accountability in the proposed
tuition plan.
He said he is worried about the future of student services because
it’s being taken out of the hands of the students. At the
very least SSFAC should be maintained, he said.
“It’s student service fees, not provost service fees,”
he said.
He said he hasn’t seen a plan of action from the administration
as to where the money will go and how students will be involved.
Walker said the biggest issue is how the increase in tuition would
affect the average student, as the same education will cost substantially
more.
“UTA will lose its competitive advantage,” he said.
He said some students would save money by starting out at Tarrant
County College and transferring to UTA.
He said another worry is student involvement, something in which
UTA can currently pride itself.
“Something great about UTA is that students receive professional
development by having the opportunity to be involved in all of this
decision making,” Walker said. “I feel that they will
be done a disservice if that is taken away from them.”
He said students should demand accountability of where their money
is going.
“No taxation without representation,” he said. “I
heard that’s what countries are founded upon.”
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