Associated Students Inc. will have an extra $1.2 million to spend next school year, as a result of a $16 student fee increase and a 3.5 percent increase in student enrollment, ASI Executive Director Richard Haller said.
The 1.5 to 2 percent enrollment growth in recent years accounts for an increase of $109,022, according to ASI’s fee income projection. In a campus referendum last February, students voted to implement a new student fee that is also set to generate approximately $1.1 million for ASI.
Haller said the next academic school year should be “very much” like a trial year because ASI will have the ability to fund new areas that Joseph Phillips, current ASI Chief of Staff and incoming ASI President, advocated for during his presidential campaign.
Current ASI President John Haberstroh said that the most visible ways that students will see the effects of the referendum is through the development of a 24-hour study center that the University Student Union Board of Trustees recently approved. The 24-hour center, which is set to open this fall, accounts for about $39,000 of the budget.
“We are bringing an after-hours study center in the west wing of the University Student Union next fall,” said Haberstroh, who is also a member of the USU Board of Trustees. “We’ll have a dedicated room 24 hours a day, and when the [USU] closes officially, the west wing will open between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.” Phillips said next year’s ASI members will focus on keeping the promises they made when advocating for the referendum.
“The number one priority of our incoming administration is to make sure that students know that we are using the new fee money to literally do what we told them we were setting out to do,” Phillips said. “I want students to know that my administration will make good on our promises.” Phillips said the approval of the study center is just one of the ways ASI has fulfilled their referendum goals so far.
“I hope that the recent decision to open the center can set any doubt that ASI can deliver to rest,” he said.