In 1990, the cost of a year of school at SF State was $870, the same as it had been the year before. This year the cost is $1,982. Next year, it will probably be more.
Students have not taken these astronomical increases lying down. They have protested in Long Beach, questioning whether the California State University Board of Trustees -- largely composed of conservative businessmen appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson -- understand the hardships the fee increases entail. In Sacramento, some legislators have taken up the student cause.
But students themselves have also voted to raise fees. In fact, since 1990, students at SF State have done it every time they've been given the opportunity.
STUDENTS HIKE FEES
Students have voted for a $9 million terrace enclosure project for the Cesar Chavez Student Center that gradually brought student center fees up from $60 in 1992 to their present level of $104 a year. The project will enclose the exposed terrace area on the center's roof, providing more interior space and ending a persistent leak problem, according to Guy Dalpe, the center's director.
In a single vote in the fall of 1992, students voted to dig deep in their pockets for a $3.4 million child-care center, and to up funding for student financial aid and intercollegiate athletics. Associated Student (AS) fees went from $36 to $84 a year for the Child Center and financial aid programs, while athletics were to benefit from an increase in Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) fees, boosted from $20 to $70 a year. IRA fees fund 62 programs within seven of the university's colleges, such as SF State's forensics team -- recognized as the best in the United States this year -- and Channel 49.
A student health services fee introduced in 1993 to augment student health centers on CSU campuses in the wake of state budget cutbacks has ballooned to $130 a year. That fee is based on recommendations to the Chancellor's office by President Robert A. Corrigan, but students have some impact on the fee level through a campus Student Health Advisory Committee, chaired by a student.
Altogether, students pay a total of $398 in "local" fees -- or one-fifth of the $1,982 cost of attending SF State full time in 1994-95.
TRUSTEES HIKE FEES
While students at SF State were voting to raise fees, the state Legislature cut allocations to the CSU system by $165 million from 1990 to 1993, according to the California Higher Education Policy Center. The trustees responded by raising CSU fees from $750 to $1,440 a year. Annual revenue from student fees over this period increased by $152 million, nearly covering the shortage.
Because of fee increases, the stagnating economy, or shifting demographics in California, total "full-time equivalent" student enrollment system-wide dropped 11.5 percent over this time -- making the increase in student fee revenue all the more impressive.
If nearly doubling CSU fees was keeping students out of schools, that "local" fees shot up 275 percent -- from $120 to $330 a year -- only added to the problem. Undergraduate enrollment at SF State dropped 12.6 percent from 1990 to 1993.
Many of the tiny percentage of students who bothered to vote in the elections that raised AS, IRA and Student Center fees have now graduated, and no longer pay them.
For those still paying today, and for those who will pay in the future, the question then becomes: what are these fee increases doing for me?
HIKES: FEW SEE BENEFITS
Students participating in programs such as the Golden Gater or intercollegiate athletics that are supported by IRA fees have benefitted. But for others, the results of fee increases have been less tangible.
AS, the CSU Chancellor's office has stated, can spend fee increases on whatever projects it sees fit, regardless of any intentions put forward in the voter referendums through which such increases are approved.
The lion's share of the fee increases students voted to fund financial aid programs were diverted to AS's general fund after one year. And financing for the Children's Center is on hold because student fees are no longer considered a sufficient guarantee for a bond issue.
IRA fee increases, totalling more than $1.1 million per year, have replenished athletic department coffers and freed up nearly $270,000 a year for other IRA programs. But beginning next year, "intercollegiate athletics" at SF State will no longer include football.
Construction on the student center terrace project can begin once a bond issue has been arranged. Students making the debt payments on those bonds for the next 30 years will have to decide if the cost -- now capped at $8.8 million -- is worth the results.
BENEFITS
The $9.2 million SF State students pay in "local" fees do provide a multitude of services for thousands of students every day.
Many think of AS simply as student government. But it is also a disbursement agent for the $1.8 million students pay in AS fees, subsidizing programs like the Children's Center, AS Performing Arts, the Legal Resource Center, Project Rebound and the Women's Center.
In terms of personnel, the Children's Center is the largest AS program, with 92 percent of its roughly $350,000 budget going to a staff of 31 that provides day care for 75 families. Students take 95 percent of the available slots, according to Sarah Johnson, the director of the Children's Center for the last five years.
The center will generate more than $200,000 in revenue for its services this year, which reduces AS's expected costs for the center to $142,000 this year. Rates are intentionally priced below market value, with a sliding scale ranging from $352 to $642 per month which adjusts fees based on income. Partial scholarships for families receiving AFDC were awarded to 15 families last fall, paying half of each families' child-care costs.
AS Performing Arts Center, which brought nationally renowned performers such as Gil Scott-Heron and Richie Havens to SF State this year as well as films, local bands and the spring crafts fair, receives a bigger slice of the AS budget pie. The $172,000 it is scheduled to receive makes it AS's second biggest program overall, taking 12 percent of the $1.07 million AS projects it will spend on 14 programs.
The AS Business Office will eat up 38 percent of the program budget this year. Expenditures are budgeted at $439,000 for 1994-95, up 27 percent from $345,000 in 1992-93. Included in that figure are fees charged by SF State's Auxiliary Accounting Department to do AS's paperwork. Those fees have remained flat at $91,000 -- as has the amount allocated to student organizations: $32,000.
In terms of dollars spent, student government takes only about one-fifth of AS's program budget -- $186,000 between the legislative and executive branches. Officeholders are scheduled to receive stipends totaling $85,000, while student government employees are budgeted at $41,000 for the year.
Cesar Chavez Student Center also has an elected governing board, with officeholders collecting a total of $49,200 in grants-in-aid. The center spends half the $2.4 million it takes in from student fees on operating expenses, squirreling the rest away in anticipation of the bond debt load for the enclosure project.
The remainder of the operating budget comes from rents paid by food vendors and Franciscan Shops totalling $1.1 million. Franciscan Shops, a nonprofit auxiliary of the university, runs the bookstore and both lobby convenience stores, paying $345,000 in rent.
The food vendors contributing the most in rents were Gold Coast Grill and Yerba Buena Taqueria, at $71,000 and $69,000, respectively, in 1992-93.
Over the past two years, $1.35 million in student fees have been funneled to a maintenance reserve fund. The fund will be used to remove asbestos in the ceiling above the basement dining area and for architectural work on the enclosure project.
The enclosure project will include a new 350-seat auditorium to replace Jack Adams Hall, conference rooms, study lounges and a multicultural center, said Dalpe.
Health services and athletics are two programs that students have taken on their shoulders to offset state budget cuts.
The Student Health Service "is a safety net for people who are uninsured," director Myra Lappin told the Gater last year. She said that 47 percent of SF State students have no insurance, and that the 20 health centers in the university system had 150,000 visits in 1992.
Student fees introduced initiated spring term 1993 at a level of $30 a semester provide Student Health Services with $3 million in operating revenues. General fund appropriations for health services system-wide plummeted from $43 million in 1990 to $27 million in 1993, according to Colleen Bentley-Adler of CSU public affairs. The fee varies from school to school, and is currently $65 a semester at SF State, bringing the program more than $3 million a year.
The athletic department is the main beneficiary of IRA funds. Salaries and benefits for coaches are budgeted at $766,000 this year, with travel and equipment weighing in at $170,000 and $121,000 respectively.
College of Creative Arts IRA programs jumped from $155,000 to $225,000 after the 1992 IRA fee increase, the theater productions and art gallery programs benefitting most.
The colleges of Behavioral Sciences and Ethnic Studies both had their IRA budgets more than doubled from 1992 levels, to $38,000 and $36,000 respectively.