Keith Robinder and Carolyn O’Laughlin weigh in.
BY: MARY WILSON
Opinions Editor
When a student enrolls at a St. Louis Community College campus, fees include an activity fee and a technology fee. According to the STLCC website, “costs include a $6.50 activity fee and $11 technology fee per credit hour.” Carolyn O’Laughlin, manager of Campus Life at the Meramec Campus, said that activity fee funds can be used for a “variety of things.” O’Laughlin pointed out that in addition to purchases like “t-shirts, pizza, retreats [and] speakers,” the student activity fee also covers auxiliary fees, like parking lot maintenance, athletics and the U-Pass.
The Student Activities Budget Committee, a committee of at least 50% students, goes through budget requests and decides how much funding each activity gets, said O’Laughlin.
According to the enrollment report available on STLCC’s website, for the fall 2020 semester, all STLCC campuses had a total of 15,206 students. Of those, 5,411 students are considered full-time (taking 12 or more credit hours per semester), and 9,795 are part-time students.
The minutes from the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of St. Louis Community College on Thursday, Oct., 2019, (the most recent relevant data from minutes) claim that for every $6.50 charge, the funds will be allocated as follows:
- $1 to auxiliary enterprises fund for the retirement of revenue bonds and maintenance of student centers.
- $2.50 for the support of public safety, pedestrian and traffic access, emergency loans and for public transportation passes for students in credit bearing classes. [The U-Pass]
- $3 for college activities—the first $200,000 collected for college activities will be designated as general revenue to support student athletics.
According to the board meeting minutes, this section was deleted in November of 2019.
From the board meeting on June 25, 2020, the college activity fees for the year ending June 30, 2021, totaled $766,623. This is a change from fiscal year 2020, when the student activity fee total was $1,044,027, a difference of $277,404.
This corresponds to a drop in enrollment from the fall 2019 semester, when all STLCC campuses had a total of 17,924 students. These numbers are taken from the Fall 2019 enrollment report, publicly available on the STLCC website.
“When enrollment is down, our funding is down,” O’Laughlin said. “It’s dollar for dollar student enrollment.”
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, classes have been moved to primarily online format. In addition, many of the activities mentioned, such as pizza parties and retreats, are now not possible due to COVID-19 guidelines. Keith Robinder, Campus Vice President of Student Affairs, said that student fees were not reduced in correlation with the pandemic.
“[The fees] are set by the board of trustees,” Robinder said.
Robinder said that the fees “are really meant to be used to provide activities to connect with one another and to pursue their goals as a club or organization.”
Although in-person events may not be possible, Robinder and O’Laughlin both said that Campus Life and the Student Governance Council are working to try to involve students in virtual events.
“We have a series of events that were district wide to provide activities over Zoom…Student Governance Council at Meramec has hosted a couple of [virtual] paint parties,” Robinder said. “The staff at Campus Life is planning a thematic series of events and activities that are primarily virtual for spring.”
O’Laughlin encouraged students to look into joining the Student Activities Budget Committee.
“I would encourage students to look for what options there are. We’re always trying to add more…We definitely want students to be aware of what the events and activities are, and if they have ideas or want to help us create a campus life that is virtual, but still has those elements of what the college experience is. We’re always open to student feedback and student participation,” Robinder said.
