The price of admissions

UW student fees fuel campus construction

But do students know what they're paying for?

By Paul Snyder

The Kress Events Center at the UW-Green Bay is budgeted at $32.5 million. Rendering courtesy of the UW-Green Bay

LaVonne Derksen couldn’t take it anymore.

She joined student government at the University of Wisconsin-Madison her sophomore year hoping to make a difference, she said.

She wanted to introduce fiscal responsibility to campus construction. She wanted to promote more control over funding for student organizations. At the very least, she wanted students to understand what they were paying for.

She left student government at the end of the year.

“As far as funding things went, it was like an innocent-until-proven-guilty mentality,” she said. “There was never any question or debate on why we should fund something. It was like everything was automatically entitled.”

And most of her peers weren’t interested anyway.

“Voter turnout is awful,” she said. “I think 11 percent was the best we got for elections. You know, I’m paying my way through school, so I want to know where my money is going. But a lot of students just don’t care.”

Workers from Neenah-based Miron Construction Co. stand atop the UW-Madison's Mechanical Engineering Building, which is undergoing a $50.6 million expansion and renovation. Photo by Paul Snyder

They should, said state Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon. When student governments convene on campuses around the state, it’s not just to decide whether to fund a new rugby team. These organizations influence the approval or rejection of multimillion-dollar facilities on UW campuses.

Student fees help fund those projects, and while that’s no secret, it may as well be, Fitzgerald said.

“The real problem right now is that there are kids going to class every day who don’t know this is how it works,” he said. “They just go in, pay their tuition and pay this fee. And I don’t think they realize that they have a voice in what’s going on.”

In December, Fitzgerald was the only State Building Commission member to oppose funding a $24.3 million University Center remodeling and addition at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He said the cost of attending UW schools increased by 50 percent in the last five years, and projects like the University Center were a chief reason.

But his main argument in December was that many students are oblivious to the fact that they’re footing the bills for these projects. UW System officials
countered that student governments at each school approve the new campus facilities.

Fitzgerald said he wonders what that really means.

The UW-Whitewater's University Center is budgeted at $20 million. The project will break ground in June. Rendering courtesy of the UW-whitewater

“I liken it to when they tried to run referendums on days when a lot of people didn’t show up to vote,” he said. “You have a student population of about 10,000, but it ends up being eight kids voting on spending millions of dollars.

“When I was at school, I couldn’t tell you when student government met, if they met or what was going on.”

Fitzgerald said his office is gathering information on how many campus projects are authorized by student governments, and how those decisions impact student fees.

The findings, he said, could lead to legislation requiring building projects valued over a certain amount go to a vote by the entire student body.

“It’s a hidden tuition,” he said. “People have found out how to get these increases through without having them noticed.”

But David Miller, the UW System’s assistant vice president for capital planning and budget, said the UW Board of Regents is already tackling the matter. He said there is also an important distinction to be made.

“Tuition is the money paid for academic programs,” he said. “It should be made clear that no tuition money is put toward construction.”

One exception to the rule, he said, is at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, which raised out-of-state tuition to fund construction of new facilities to draw more out-of-state students.

But the rest of the UW System’s construction is funded by student segregated fees, and the Board of Regents recently requested an audit to determine how these fees are being spent. In the past four academic years, all 26 UW System schools raised segregated fee rates at least twice, while 19 raised fees in each of the four years.

“We’re analyzing it down to the last penny,” Miller said.

He said students impose the segregated fees upon themselves. Student governments not only vote to set the fees, but they also vote on how to distribute the money to various student organizations and construction or maintenance projects.

Miller added that, in the past, he talked student governments out of some lavish projects that simply were unaffordable, but the groups usually maintain a pragmatic view of campus development and often reject proposals or request revisions.

Jim Freer, vice chancellor of administrative affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, said he sees no problem in the way student governments operate, but he conceded that the rest of the student population could show a little more interest in the proceedings.

“They’re not as involved as they should be, but I don’t think that differs from the general population that much” he said. “Are you or I aware of every decision that’s made in Madison? The information is there for all of us, but most of us don’t take advantage of it.”

That line of reasoning didn’t sit well with Jackie Sinchak, a junior at the UW-Madison.

“It seems like an excuse to me,” she said. “So what? It’s OK because that’s the way society is? I think we should be a little more focused at our school.”

Sinchak said it should be the school’s job to get students involved. She said the only way students find out about student government decisions right now is through school newspapers after votes are taken.

“There was a vote on remodeling or demolishing Union South last year,” she said. “But there was no mention of it before the vote took place, no real effort to get students involved in the process.

Three tower cranes stand on the site of the University of Wisconsin Medical School's Interdisciplinary Research Complex, a $134 million project. Photo by Paul Snyder

“They could make it really easy and at least send out a mass e-mailing.”

But Derksen said she isn’t sure e-mails would make a dent.

“It’s really hard to say what would be the best way to get the word out to students,” she said. “Dorm mailings typically get thrown out before anyone even looks at them, and as far as e-mails go, you tend to delete them if you don’t know who they’re coming from.”

But knowledge of an upcoming vote doesn’t necessarily translate into a knowledgeable voter. Fitzgerald said he sees how students can easily be sold on new projects.

“Let’s face it, if I’m a student, and I see that we’re going to build a new recreational center, and everything’s going to be brand new and great, I’d say, ‘OK, that sounds good,’” he said. “But you don’t get the details, like over the next year you’re going to be paying 300 more dollars in fees. And the next year it’ll be $400.

“And by the time it’s finished, you’ll already have graduated.”

But Whitewater’s Freer said it’s off the mark to think administrations railroad students with construction proposals. He said students who complain about paying for buildings they won’t use should take a look at their surroundings.

“They need to remember that they’re living in and utilizing buildings that someone else paid for,” he said. “If everyone said, ‘I’m only going to pay for the buildings I use,’ they’d have nothing.

“Your investment at a university is a commitment to the future — not only yours, but the university’s as well.”

The UW-Stevens Point's $24.3 million University Center expansion adds 43,000 square feet to the student building. Rendering courtesy of the UW-Stevens Point

And to that end, administrators push for higher-end projects.

“When we’re constructing new dorms, we have to look at suite-style facilities now,” Freer said. “State schools have to compete with the private sector to attract students. It’s a marketplace, and we are a business.”

Both Freer and Miller pointed to state government, not student government, as a possible source of the problem. The state used to keep reserve funds in its school budget to get new construction projects off the ground.

But that changed with the 2003-2005 state budget, Miller said. In that budget, Gov. Jim Doyle used the money to bolster financial aid, forcing schools to start from scratch.

“Students paid the money to put into the fund, projects were started, and then our funds were raided,” Miller said. “So they had to pay again. It put a great fear into many campuses.”

It’s still just the beginning of the debate over how student fees are gathered and distributed, Miller said. But no matter what the public learns or how much people argue over the process, he said, the likely impact on UW campus construction will be minimal.

And while both Miller and Freer agreed more student involvement would be good, they didn’t think Fitzgerald’s potential legislation to have major projects voted on by the entire student body is the right answer.

“You can’t mandate democracy,” Miller said. “You can only ensure the right to a democratic process. And students have that right.”