24.3.1 Mandatory Student Fees

(Last Modified on March 15, 2018)

Student activity fees, technology fees, and the Special Institutional Fee are the three basic mandatory fees charged by all colleges and universities. Other student service related mandatory fees charged by most institutions include health fees, athletic fees, and transportation fees. Many institutions also charge facility fees that are used to support rental/lease payments on Public Private Venture (PPV) projects.

Institutions should refer to Section 7.3.4.2 of the BOR Policy Manual for guidance on waivers of mandatory fees.

Student Activity Fees

Student activity fees are collected for the purpose of supporting programs and services affecting all aspects of student life. Correspondingly, the expenditure of these fees should be student centered with the students being the primary participants or beneficiaries.

As with all institutional funds, USG policies and procedures must be considered when expenditures are made from student activity funds. Budgets allocated to student organizations and expended under the authority of the student group represent a shared responsibility between institutional officers, the respective student group and the student fee committee. Thus, it is the responsibility of these groups to ensure that expenditures made are an appropriate use of student activity funds in line with applicable State and USG policies and procedures.

Student activity fee revenues may be used to support a broad spectrum of student related services, most commonly in the areas of social and entertainment activities, intramural sports, student publications and student government associations. While it is not the intent of this section to provide an exhaustive list of USG rules and regulations for expenditures, the following guidance is provided on expenditures of student activity fees.

Appropriate expenditures of Student Activity fees would include:

• Hiring and paying travel for performers- Meals and travel expenses are subject to per-diem and non-employee travel regulations (BPM Section 19.9). If all costs of performing group, including travel expenses, are included as part of a lump-sum contract, travel regulations would not apply.
• Consultant expenses.
• Prizes/awards from raffles-Participation in the raffle must be available to all students. Raffles/lotteries may be lawfully conducted without a license if participants are allowed to enter at no cost. For these events, individual prizes must be de minimis in value (not to exceed $100). If licenses are obtained and raffle tickets are sold, gifts are limited to funds collected in the raffle.
• Food and refreshments for student group events-Appropriate if event is open to all students within specific identifiable group.
• Promotional Items-Associated with promotional events for students, such as student recruitment. Acceptable items would be T-shirts, mugs, plaques, flash drives, etc. Individual value should not exceed $50. Cash awards and gift cards are strongly discouraged. Should the institution determine the use of cash awards or gift cards is the most appropriate action, strong internal controls must be in place to account for the funds and avoid theft. The institution may be subject to additional prohibitions on promotional items resulting from athletic conference regulations.
• Performance Based Awards-Considered acceptable if student has provided some service and/or performed some function to receive award (e.g., writing contests, dance contests, and various student skills competitions). Award amounts may vary based on value of service/performance, not to exceed $500.
• Staff salaries and benefits-Appropriate if included in budget as reviewed by student fee advisory committee. The personal services supported by these fees must be directly related to support and administration of the activities funded by the fee. Institutions are encouraged to minimize the use of student activity fee revenue to support staff salaries and benefits for student support administrators where general operating funds are available.
• Employee travel (including student employees)-Appropriate, but subject to State travel regulations (BPM Section 4). For student employees, the institution will have to determine if student employee travel is related to whether the student in question is traveling as a student or an employee to determine which section of travel regulations apply.
• Event costs-Appropriate to stage events (e.g., decorating event area, printing programs, advertising).
• Furniture, fixtures, equipment
• Lease payments for Public Private Ventures if fee was assessed to fund service “rental” payments. See section on Facility fees.
• Other operating costs-Normal supply, maintenance and utility costs.

Student Activity fees should NOT be expended on the following:

• Donations should not be funded by student activity fees. Proceeds from student group fund-raisers for a charitable purpose should be accounted for in an agency fund.
• Scholarships- Prohibited unless based on some performance measure or service requirement. Performance measures would require some academic or student activity skill to be displayed (e.g., athletics, music, literary, math, etc.). Simply being an enrolled student would not qualify as a performance measure.
• Tips-Unless covered by State travel guidelines or service contract.
• Faculty salaries and benefits-Student activity fees should not be used to directly fund instructional costs of credit hour courses.
• Intercollegiate Athletic program costs-Normally these costs should be paid from Athletic fees. Possible exceptions could be for support groups, such as dance teams or cheerleaders, and club sports, if included in the budget as reviewed by the student fee advisory committee. Costs of intramural/recreational athletic programs are allowable.
• Student employee recognition luncheons/meals-Not allowable if provided for an individual or a specific group. Student employees may receive food if partaking in an event open to all students and student employees are at function as a “student”. See bullet item 4 under appropriate expenditures.
• Prospective Student travel-Not allowable unless certain conditions are met as outlined in BPM Section 19.9.
• Alcoholic beverages or any illegal substances.
• Individual or club memberships in civic organizations
• Political campaigns or events

If a specific Public Private Venture project is funded with a student activity fee, those fees should be designated to support project costs, such as lease payments and expenses for project operations as outlined in the original or amended proforma. See section on Facility Fees below.

Technology Fees

Technology fees are charged by all institutions. Financial accounting for technology fees is addressed in BPM Section 2.9. There are two basic principles governing use of student technology fees:

1. Student technology fees should be used to supplement normal levels of technology spending. Institutions should be able to provide evidence that overall institution technology expenditures clearly reflect that expenditures based upon fee revenues are above and beyond normal levels.

2. The focus of student technology fees should be on technology related to either academic outcomes or instructional objectives. Distinctions should be drawn between expenditures for administrative applications or scientific and laboratory equipment, and instructional technology. Technology fee revenues should be used for the primary benefit of students by:

• Directing expenses to assist students in meeting educational objectives of their academic programs;
• Ensuring that there are sufficient campus software licenses, so that students have easy access to technological tools needed in their chosen disciplines;
• Ensuring that computer labs used by students are adequately equipped and have sufficient network bandwidth and appropriate internet access;
• Providing training for students in the use of computing and networking resources, when needed. Generally, faculty and staff training should be paid for from general operating funds, but faculty and staff may avail themselves of student training sessions if space permits.
• Leveraging with other funds to yield greater resources for students; (Technology fee revenues may be combined with another fund source(s) to make purchases that will enhance technological resources provided to students).
• Providing new staffing only when it will clearly add documented value for students. Under no circumstances may technology fees be used to fund existing positions that would otherwise be cut from an operational budget, nor should technology fees be used to fund general computing and networking positions that have a significant administrative or research support component.

Generally, technology fees should not be used to acquire general supplies or software or hardware products for faculty use. General operating funds should be used for these purposes, unless there is a demonstrated and direct value to students which would justify use of technology fees.

Also, technology fees should not be used to purchase technological resources that will be used for administration purposes. System hardware, software, and other related costs that do not have a direct impact on academic outcomes and/or instructional objectives should be paid from general operating funds.

Special Institutional Fee

The Special Institutional Fee is a general purpose fee charged system-wide by the Board of Regents at all institutions. This fee was established in 2009 (BOR Minutes, June 2009) to ensure sufficient funding to support ongoing academic excellence. Since this is a general purpose fee, institutions may use it to support any level of operations that would be appropriate for any educational and general fund source.

Athletic Fees

Athletic fees are collected for the purpose of funding USG institutions’ intercollegiate athletic programs. Athletic fee charges vary by institution depending on the number of intercollegiate sports offered and conference and association affiliations. The primary purpose of athletic fees should be to fund travel and operating expenses directly related to intercollegiate sporting events, provide scholarships for student athletes, and fund athletic staff salaries. For institutions that have Athletic Associations, portions or all of the athletic fees are transferred to the related Athletic Associations to supplement funding of athletic scholarships and related expenses. This type of arrangement must be pre-approved by the Board Treasurer, Chief Fiscal Officer and governed by a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the USG institution and the Athletic Association. This MOU outlining responsibilities must be on file and available upon request.

The management of athletic programs is addressed in Section 4.5 of the BOR Policy Manual. The amount of student fee revenue that may be raised to support an intercollegiate athletic program is determined by several factors, including conference affiliation, fundraising, and total expenditures of the program. The full regulations can be found in Section 4.5.8 of the BOR Policy Manual.

If a specific Public Private Venture athletic project is funded with a mandatory student fee, those fees should be designated to support that project’s lease payments and other required project costs. See Facility Fees below. This requirement is further outlined in BPM Section 25.6.2.

Health Fees

Health fees are collected to provide health services for students. Health services offered by institutions vary depending on the size of the institution and the planned use of the fees. Generally, health fees are used to support costs of campus health centers. In some instances, health fees cover most, if not all, costs of services provided. This includes staffing, supplies, utilities, and other overhead. There are instances where the health fee is supplemented by voluntary fees for desired clinical services outside of the scope of the mandatory health fee. These voluntary fees may be paid directly by students or through billing of the student’s insurance. However, a student’s insurance should not be billed for those services available at no cost through the mandatory health fee. Institutions may choose to contract with a healthcare service provider to outsource the provision of health services to students. When this is the case, the health fee should be tied to the cost incurred by the provider, as opposed to contract rates being set as a percentage of health fee revenue.

If a specific Public Private Venture health project is funded with a mandatory student fee, those fees should be designated to support that project’s lease payments and other required project costs. See Facility Fees below. This requirement is further outlined in BPM Section 25.6.2.

Transportation/Parking Fees

Mandatory transportation fees at some institutions are charged to provide students access to an institution’s transit system or a public transit system, while at others, this fee may be identified as a parking fee to provide access to campus parking for students. Transportation and parking are generally managed as auxiliary enterprises and the student fees associated with those activities should be used to support those auxiliary functions. BPM Section 15 provides guidance on the expenditure of auxiliary enterprise funds.

If a specific Public Private Venture transportation/parking project is funded with a mandatory student fee, those fees should be designated to support that project’s lease payments and other required project costs. See Facility Fees below. This requirement is further outlined in BPM Section 25.6.2.

Facility Fees

Facility fees are generally charged in conjunction with Public Private Venture (PPV) projects whereby students are assessed a fee to fund the cost of operations and service capital lease payments on a specific facility, such as a parking deck, wellness center, athletic facility, or student center. The name of the facility fee varies across institutions and generally corresponds to the project being supported (e.g. Student Center Fee). PPV projects have special reporting requirements described in BPM Section 25. In some cases, facility fees will be assessed independently as a standalone fee. In other cases, some of the mandatory student fees described above could have a facility component. In situations where the facility portion is only a component of the fee, the PPV reporting should not include the costs associated with running specific programming or personnel not dedicated to managing or operating the facility. Housing and food service fees (described in the following section) may also have a facility component.

Facility fees should typically be charged to students who have access to the facility constructed. Therefore, there will likely be instances where these fees should only be assessed to a certain segment of students. Assessing a facility fee to students who do not have access to the facility might not be an appropriate or prudent decision. Section 7.3.4.2 of the BOR Policy Manual provides guidance on mandatory fee waivers. Also, if there are any questions about the students to be charged or served by a fee funded facility, please contact the Office of Strategy & Fiscal Affairs.

Section 25 of the BPM discusses allowable expenses of facility fee revenue. Facility fees should be used to pay base rent, additional rents, and operational costs on the project for which the fee was assessed. Base rent covers the principal and interest on capital lease obligations. Additional rent is the renewal and replacement reserve that is maintained by the foundation’s trustee for repairs and renovation as needed to keep the facility operational. Operational costs should be limited to costs directly related to the project, such as maintenance, utilities, supplies and dedicated personnel. Facility fees are not allowed to be spent on capital expenditures. Instead, these capital expenditures must be covered by the renewal and replacement reserve held by the Foundation.

Historically, the foundation sponsored PPV projects supported by facility fees are designed to generate a 1.0-1.05 coverage ratio on a yearly basis. Georgia Higher Education Facilities Authority (GHEFA) funded projects are also developed with very tight margins. Anything above a 1.0 coverage is effectively the excess earnings generated from revenues after disbursements for rental payments and operating costs. Institutions are required to hold these funds in reserve to cover project shortfalls that may occur at a later date.

Institutions should use caution in using these reserve funds other than for project-specific needs. The Office of Strategy & Fiscal Affairs must approve use of reserves equal to ten percent (10%) or greater of the existing net cash/project reserve balance in any fiscal year. The goal of the System Office is to maintain sufficient project reserves to meet unexpected financial challenges with the project. This requirement is detailed in BPM Section 25.6.6.

After appropriate reserves are attained, institutions are encouraged to consider reducing fees to a point where the profitability margin is minimal in order to pass some cost savings back to the students. At the point in time when reserves are sufficient to retire remaining lease payments, the fee associated with a particular project should be reduced or eliminated.

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