by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
Student Haseeb Kabir said mandatory student fees should go toward services all students can benefit from.
"Some of it has nothing to do with most students," he said. "I would like to pay for CAPS, but not a child care center."
Every UNM student paid about $465 in mandatory fees this semester, up $8 from last year.
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The fees support UNM departments and programs, including athletics, the libraries, Popejoy Hall and the SUB.
The largest fee is about $200 for facilities. The Student Health Center gets about $85, and ITS gets almost $60.
The Student Fee Review Board is the committee that recommends how the money - about $8 million - should be distributed.
The chairman of the committee said there are more important things than athletics that the money could go toward.
"I don't think any student fees should be going to athletics at all," said Joseph Garcia, chairman of the Student Fee Review Board. "I think the money could be used more on Main Campus and improve graduation rates across the board, undergraduate and
graduate."
Athletics has seen the largest percentage increase in SFRB funding recommendations in the last four years, with an increase of about 60 percent since 2003.
It got about $1.25 million from mandatory student fees this year.
Not everyone will agree on where the student fees should go, but the money is meant to make the University better for everyone, said Greg Remington, spokesman for the Athletics Department.
"Those go to cover all kinds of things, not just athletics," he said. "Maybe someone would like to see all their student fees go just to athletics. Somebody else would rather just see it go to all the events at Popejoy or music or just to recreation."
Compared to other universities, UNM students don't have it that bad when it comes to funding athletics, Remington said.
Full-time UNM students pay a $36.37 athletic fee.
Full-time students at NMSU pay a $71.60 fee for athletics.
Full-time students at Utah State University pay a $53.25 fee for athletics.
Tuition goes into a general fund for the University, and its distribution is not broken down like the student fees, said Curt Porter, associate vice president of Budget, Planning and
Analysis.
"There is no distinction made about how tuition goes to fund those different portions,"
he said.
Porter said a common misconception is tuition money helps fund the Athletics Department.
"Athletics is more of a self-supporting entity," he said. "No tuition money goes to athletics. It never has, never will."
