As the cost for attending university constantly increases, tuition fees aren’t the only factor responsible for the rise. The growing trend among Canadian universities is the annual increase of Student Activity Fees (SAF), which are called Special Fees at Queen’s.
The student activity fee is the money paid by students for campus clubs and serivces. Queen’s has seen a 61 per cent increase in activity fees in the past 10 years and currently charges $676.68 a year. While many of these fees are subject to opt-out, $419.28 of the fee qualifies as mandatory.
Queen’s student activity fee is currently in the middle in of what other university students pay across the country. Students at McGill currently pay $1,250, while students at the University of Alberta pay $336.39.
The activity fees are increased due to the ing of referendum questions each year, as well an increase in mandatory fees. Each year the total cost of mandatory fees rises with the Consumer Price Index.
The implementation of the $71 Queen’s Centre Fee in 2005 also raised the cost of mandatory fees.
AMS Vice-President (Operations) John Manning said most of the increase is caused by new optional fees.
In 1995, Queen’s students had 12 optional fees to choose from. Today, they have 67.
Greg McKellar, AMS information officer, said the majority of new, increasing and tri-annual review optional fees almost always .
“While the number of fees has increased, the overall cost of optional fees has not increased much, as most fees are under a dollar,” McKellar said.
Manning said the AMS will conduct a review of Special Fees, in order to clarify which groups should get funding and which shouldn’t.
“One option would be to amalgamate the fees, but if you do that, you lose a bit of the transparency,” Manning said.
McKellar said the review process was necessary because most optional fees with “relative ease.”
Queen’s is differentiated from other universities because it has always tried to make its activity fees transparent, listing exactly what organizations are receiving funding. Most universities give one lump number for the category of Special Fees, McKellar said.
In 1994, the provincial NDP government ed legislation to ensure that a university’s istration couldn’t implement Special Fees without first consulting the student government.
Queen’s already had protocol in place—the use of referenda to get student opinion and a transparency policy—and never implemented the legislation, McKellar said.
Some fees by the referendum and can be ed through the AMS’s Annual General Meeting.
Other fees that can be additional to tuition are the mandatory Student Assistance Levy and Faculty-Specific Fees.
The Student Assistance Levy was implemented by istration in 1993 as a mandatory $100 fee for full-time students, with revenue going to the Student Awards Office to help with scholarships and student assistance. As for the future of Student Activity Fees, in two years there will be a $70 increase for the Queen’s Centre Fee, which will be in place until 2020.
McKellar said he also expects the Athletics Fee to increase in response to the Athletics Review.
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