This semester students in the business college paid a $250 or $500 fee - depending on residency - to supplement their tuition. The extra revenue is being used primarily to rehire old professors and increase class availability. We asked our columnists, "Is the business college fee plan a good model for other UA colleges to follow?"

Fees are last resort to improve degree value

Aside from increasing our knowledge of the world, students attend universities to earn a product ÷ a diploma.

The cost of that degree is an investment in our future ÷ one that we bear now in hopes that the benefits received, as a graduate, will outweigh what we dished out to put on a blue mortarboard.

Most students do not consider the value continuum of a UA degree. Simply put, not all UA degrees are worth the same.

Graduating from a prestigious program will pay off later in the form of higher salaries, better benefits and an esteemed network of contacts. In the case of the Eller College, maintaining a top national ranking is important to those in the program ÷ it makes the student with an Eller degree a hotter item on the business market.

Leave it to the business school to take charge of its own marketability. If paying a few hundred bucks will directly improve the quality of the program, imposing the fee is not only a sound business decision, but also practical in the Arizona world of state-funding deprivation.

Many UA programs could use this business model to improve the quality of their own programs, assuming at least 15 percent of the collected fees could be set aside for financial aid.

Just because business students study business does not imply that schools of other academia cannot cash in. Until the Arizona Legislature shapes up, differential fees offer UA programs a way out from under the fiscal guillotine.

Jessica Lee is an environmental science senior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.

Program fee sets a healthy fiscal example

They always say that, if you want something done right, do it yourself. This is exactly what the Eller college has done with their new program fee: kept the dollar amount small, listened to students' feedback and focused the additional revenue on its own well-being. Obviously, when the university isn't coming through with money, it becomes crucial that programs begin looking out for themselves. If they want to remain competitive, they must find their own way around the budget. By hiring new professors, improving computing facilities and internship placement and listening to its students' needs, Eller has picked up the slack and turned the tide on the faculty mass exodus.

Some students fear that other colleges will follow in Eller's footsteps and start charging their own fees. I certainly hope so. After all, only the departments know precisely what they need and where funds would be most effective. One of the roughest things about university-wide tuition increases is that the students are paying more and probably still not seeing any direct benefits in their own classrooms. If departments charge their own fees, at least the money will be visibly put to good use. An extra $250-500 a semester is a small price to pay to make a college degree more valuable, enjoy smaller classes, or have an edge in the graduate admissions and job market showdown.

Sabrina Noble is a senior majoring in English and creative writing. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.

Time for other colleges to follow suit

Though it would seem fitting, the political science department doesn't offer CNN to its students. CNN, it seems, is however one of the perks of the business college, thanks to the differential fee applied to incoming Eller college undergrads.

Though criticized, the benefits of the semester program fee are undeniable: greater class availability and more professors, to name a couple. Because it can be seemingly impossible to get needed upper-division classes until as late as senior year, many students are forced to stay for an extra semester or two in order to complete their graduation requirements. If adding a differential fee in more colleges would allow students to get the classes they need on time, with quality faculty, I say pass me the bill. I would rather pay a semester fee than another semester's worth of tuition.

Blame for the increasing cost of education should be directed at state lawmakers who continually under-fund Arizona universities, and not college administrators. They're doing what they can to give us an education that's actually worth more than most Ivy League kids would lead us to believe.

Whether you approve or not, forcing students to foot a larger bill is a trend to which many universities are ascribing in order to stay competitive. If other UA colleges share the high aspirations of the business college, they either need to follow suit or prepare to keep falling in rank.

Courtney Cooper is a political science senior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.

Business college fee sets a bad precedent

Call it what you want, but the new business college "fee" is nothing more than a tuition increase.

Yeah, improvements have come to the college as a result of this new fee, and that's good.

But the danger with the fee is long-term: It sets a dangerous precedent in which students are tricked into paying higher tuition.

Tuition should be set at one rate for a "University of Arizona" education, not set by individual programs.

As Student Executive Vice President Melanie Rainer, a former student lobbyist, points out, the Regents have set no standards for the fee. What's stopping another college, school or department from doing the same thing?

And since the fee was not advertised as a tuition increase, it was not open to the same critical judgment and oversight as a conventional increase.

Sure, there was opposition, particularly from student lobbyists who took a surprisingly logical position on the matter, but the "increase" in tuition for business students was slid in much less candidly than the $1,000 increase for all students.

Call a spade a spade.

No doubt, most students can afford the increase. But this new seemingly calculated way of sneaking in tuition increases is a bad road to continue down.

Daniel Scarpinato is a journalism and political science senior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.

New fee a good idea in troubled times

Cheers to the business college for implementing the new semester program fee for undergraduates entering the college this year.

At first, it may seem like the college is pulling a fast one. As Executive Vice President Melanie Rainer points out, "It's definitely something to worry about. Essentially, it's like another tuition increase."

It is true that students in the business college are paying more, but it goes directly to their college, where it will help them the most.

This is a relatively small fee in the grand scheme of things and I would much rather have my money ÷ or, I should say, my parents' money ÷ go the college of which I am a part.

In a time when the UA is pinching pennies anywhere it can, from cutting faculty to banning professors from making photocopies for classes, how can we argue against this?

With the dire financial situation the UA is in, we need to start thinking about every option, including differential fees.

This being said, we shouldn't rush into this, guns ablaze, creating new fees just for the sake of amassing more money. However, small fees to keep the UA competitive during these troubled times might be a good option.

If I have to pay a little more to have quality professors or something as simple as a paper copy of a syllabus, where do I send the check?

Jason Poreda is a political science and communication senior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.

Fees will elevate college standards

If the UA wants to be one of the top public schools in the country, it had better start acting like one, which means allocating money to the correct places. Accordingly, if the business college wants to charge a differential fee in order to help retain much-needed personnel and resources ÷ then so be it. After all, it is Eller students who wanted this, and they will be monitoring its uses.

If other colleges want to follow suit and their students concur, that's fine, as long as it makes the students more competitive after college.

Better faculty and guest speakers, smaller class sizes and greater class availability are necessary for developing and recruiting top students. After all, it is the scholars that make the university competitive, so why not give more money to those impacting the student body? For instance, professor Smith left UA after 25 years. Soon after he left, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics, a major embarrassment for the UA that is indicative of a growing faculty retention problem.

The differential fee is just fine, as long as there are opportunities for students who need financial assistance to receive scholarships or some sort of grant to help them with the cost of their education.

Ryan Scalise is a political science senior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.