The Student Fee Review Board is recommending a $31.62-per-semester increase in student fees for the upcoming school year.
If the recommendations are approved, undergraduate student fees will rise to about $490 per semester.
The board sent its final recommendations to University departments and the vice president of Student Affairs.
Vice President Cheo Torres and President David Schmidly will consider the recommendations before they are worked into the University budget, which will be submitted to the Board of Regents in April.
Torres' office said they have not yet considered the recommendations in respect to the total budget.
Last year, Schmidly overturned 10 SFRB recommendations.
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Fate said that if the recommended amounts are changed, it will be a reflection of needs for the UNM budget.
"If they are overturned, that's OK, because our job is to be a recommendation board," she said. "I don't presume to know the entire University budget. Without knowing all the facts, it's hard to make sure that the SFRB piece fits perfectly."
Fate said she regrets the recommended fee hike but that the board was careful in assessing the necessity of the funds that were allocated to departments.
"I think it is a large fee," she said. "I would have liked to have seen a smaller fee, but on the flip side, I know why we came to the fee we did, so I don't feel bad. When you look at just the number, I think it's large, but when I put it in context to what it is we are funding and what these departments provide to students, it is so worth it."
The fee is higher this year because of the change in UNM's Full-Time Equivalency, which is based on enrollment levels, ASUNM Sen. Nick Torres said.
The decrease in enrollment causes an automatic increase of $12.78 per student, Torres said. The additional fees were decided based on the needs of various departments.
"The estimated FTE for the coming 2009-10 fiscal year has dropped to 20,000 students from the 20,600 students (last year)," he said. "This means that the student fees paid by the 600 students that were lost now need to be distributed among the estimated 20,000 students that will be enrolled next year."
The largest recommended increase by the SFRB went to Student Health and Counseling, which was recommended $3,960,800, Fate said.
"We gave them an increase from last year so that we were giving them enough money to pay their employees and keep their doors open," she said. "If we hadn't done that this year, they would have had to increase their co-pay or decrease the amount of insurance providers."
The next-largest recommendation was on behalf of the library system in order for them to keep resources available to students.
Torres said the board recommended the ethnic centers get their requested amounts, with the exception of African-American Student Services, which was recommended less than they requested, $65,000.
"American Indian Student Services was recommended $45,000, and El Centro de la Raza was recommended at $100,000," he said. "The child care center was recommended at $278,347, which is an increase of $40,000 from last year, but less than they requested."
The SFRB deliberation minutes are available in the ASUNM office, Fate said.
"We really tried to make this with as much integrity as it could have had, so hopefully this year, when people look at the Board and what they did and how they came to the consensus they did, they really feel good about what students have done," she said.
