Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Honors students hit with higher fee MARY HARTNEY GAMECOCK JSC Honors College students ■e faced with an unfamiliar fig ■ this fall on their tuition bills - Honors College fee. Honors Col e Dean Peter Sederberg an-, tnced the "user fee" this past •ing, but the actual amount ■ned out to be higher than stu lts expected. Returning honors students will y $75 per semester this year, and st-year students will pay $125 • semester - $25 more each than derberg had originally figured, e Honors College includes ap oximately 1,000 students, 242 in eir first year. Total fee money ' s semester is expected to reach out $30,000 from first-year stu nts and about $56,000 from re turning students. If the fee had not been raised, the college-would have received about $24,000 less. Sederberg sai'd he submitted the idea of a user fee to the board of trustees in April and then raised the fee after receiving ap proval over the summer. He said he could have gone back to the board in July, after budget cuts turned out to be less steep than ex pected, but he chose instead to place more money into a reserve fund. Sederberg originally estimated that 2 percent to 3 percent of the - money generated by the fees would go into the reserve fund but now figures it will be closer to 5 percent. "I always hoped to carry over a small amount," he said. "That's just good planning. It gives you money for initiatives and a cush ion for a downturn." The reserve money will be used as a cushion for future budget cuts Sederberg anticipates. "Neat year looks even worse," he said. "I'm not happy to have done it.... I suppose if someone held a gun to my head, we'd do it again." He said, however, he didn't ex pect another fee increase in the near future. Some Honors College students, including third-year student and Maxcy College Resident Adviser Candi Hauglum, are upset by the fee. Hauglum attended Sederberg's information sessions in the spring but said what were supposed to be discussion sessions didn't allow for much student input. "I feel kind of lied to," Hauglum said. "We were lied to about student input. Our voice wasn't heard at all." Sederberg had announced his two information sessions, one late in the fall semester and one in ear ly spring, by posting fliers and sending a notice through Honors College e-mail. During the meet ings, he explained how the fee would be used mainly for one-time investments and for building a re serve fund. He said money would go toward funding scholarships, new classes and the Honors Col lege administration. Hauglum said she was upset by the way the fees were justified. "I really don't like the way they spend the money. We have ad ministrators we don't need and classes that aren't useful for the general Honors College commu nity." Hauglum said she felt the fee money was used as a "redistribu tioft of cash" - as scholarships for students who already receive scholarships. "I'm never going to see a dime of that money, and I feel like that’s money I worked for,” Hauglum said. Nicholas Young, a second-year Honors student who is also a Max cy College RA, attended the sec ond meeting and said he thought Sederberg was "very straightfor ward" when he explained the fee. "In the overall scheme of things, it's not a big deal to me,... but it was just a surprise to me that they implemented the fee to expand the program" even though the Honors College didn't face as large a budget cut as it expected. Martin Caver, a second-year Honors student and co-president of the Honors Council, said out-of state students, whose tuition in creased by 8.5 percent this semes ter, seem to be hit hardest by the fee. "You get a lot of bright people from out of state that will be dis couraged from coming to USC be cause of all the different fees that are accumulating," Caver said. "It seems like they nickel and dime you for everything." USC to end fund raiser V BRANDON LARRABEE IE GAMECOCK USC will wrap up its bicen nnial campaign in June 2002 af r a nearly seven-year effort that as already brought USC more lan $350 million in private funds. Since the campaign began, the niversity has raised $356.8 mil on in “present value,” money lat has actually been received, nd more than $425 million in face value,” which also includes romises in donors’ wills, accord ig to USC Development Vice resident Bob Staton. The uni ersity received $65.2 million over ae 2000-2001 fiscal year. Staton said the end of the cam aign after this fiscal year will co ncide with the end of President ohn Palms’ 11-year tenure at the .niversity and come shortly after he end of USC’s bicentennial cel bration. “I think all those things say it’s time” to end the campaign, Sta ton said. Palms announced this past May he will retire in June 2002. Staton said the university would still try to make its goal of $500 million, set last September af ter the university broke its goals of $200 million and then $300 mil lion ahead of schedule. He said timing the campaign to coincide with Palms’ retirement and the end of the bicentennial would give the university “a good message” to take to donors as USC tries to make its goal. “We’re going to use all those things to push to really try to make that happen,” Staton said. “We’re shooting to hit our goals,” he said. The university would look at both the present value and the face value to determine whether it had met its goal, Staton said. But he said the campaign should be recognized as success ful regardless of whether it brings in $500 million because the uni versity has already surpassed its two earlier goals. “The past year was a tremen dous success, and the campaign was a tremendous success,” Sta ton said. The largest chunk of the new funds went to support academic program enhancements, which reached $38.7 million in the past fiscal year. Support for scholar ships hit $10.8 million, gifts for fac ulty development, which includes chairs and professorships, reached $4.9 million and the Gamecock Club garnered $9.5 mil lion. High-profile gifts over the last year have included Norman J. Arnold’s $10 million gift to the School of Public Health, which now bears his name, and six oth er gifts of $1 million or more. The bicentennial campaign has left its mark on the universi ty through such donations as Dar la Moore’s $25 million gift, which led the university to name the School of Business after her, and Robert McNair’s $20 million gift, which led to the creation of the McNair Scholars program award ing scholarships to out-of-state stu dents. Staton said the university’s fundraising efforts wouldn’t end with the conclusion of the bicen tennial campaign. He said the uni versity would continue to raise money, and said it was likely the next president would kick off a new campaign to raise additional funds. “I’d just suspect, if history holds true, they’d want to do that,” Staton said. THE GAMECOCK New Writers’ Meeting, Sept. 5, RH 205, 7:30 p.m. 15f Ilf Iflllllllfi! i i”p" A P A ” J A Z 1. CLIP THE COUPON || R E C O R D SHOPPE ./J i. GET THE TUMES .» ' j P2014 Greene Strict • Columbia, SCJ2J2205 :§|| I , * * t., . WE PAY CASH FOR USED RECORDS, CDS, DVDS, TAPES j I f 4 r k.1 I ; liJ f 1-k—.—-J*—-*