By Justin Cooper, Contributor
Every student who attends San Diego State has to pay the Instructionally Related Activities Fee. However, not all students understand the reason behind it or what it funds.
For the first time, hundreds of SDSU students participated in an Associated Students sponsored men’s basketball tailgate, which featured free food and raffles. It was largely funded by the IRA fee.
“I think that the pride on our campus is starting to pick up, and starting to increase,” A.S. Executive Vice President Sean Kashanchi said. “And that is mainly because of this IRA fee and because we are able to have the funding to create these events.”
In the two years since the $80 per semester fee increase passed — increasing it from $190 to $350 per year — the controversy has largely died away, although the effects still remain.
The women’s lacrosse team in particular has benefited from the fees.
“It’s very valuable to our department and to our ability to be a viable and strong member of the Mountain West Conference,” SDSU Athletic Director Jim Sterk said. “It allows us to be competitive and represents San Diego State at a competitive level.”
Jeff Sparks, president of the SDSU rugby club team, said that the fee brings many benefits, accounting for one-fourth of its budget. Because of the fee, the team can travel by bus and rent hotel rooms but still needs to hold fundraisers to make ends meet, Sparks said.
In only two years, the IRA fee increase has generated about one-third of the athletics department total operating budget, Sterk said.
“It’s an important part of our budget, a significant part,” he said.
The department has been committed to reducing expenses, Sterk said, cutting eight full-time employees and 12 part-time employees.
Sports clubs receive a fraction of the fee money — 6.8 percent of the $80 fee, according to SDSU Recreation Director Eric Huth.
The A.S. Recreations Board ultimately approves dispersal of these funds.
According to Associate Vice President of Financial Operations Scott Burns, the IRA fee will eventually adjust or “index” for inflation. Six years after the passage of the IRA fee increase, the cost students pay will increase slightly every year in order to adjust for inflation and a changing economy that may put new stresses on student athletes. The provision was placed in the 2008 IRA fee in order to avoid the fate of the first IRA fee passed in 2006, which could not adjust for increasing prices or worsening economic conditions.
Reactions from the student body at that time were mixed. Some, especially student athletes, supported the fee while others opposed it, arguing that the money should be spent on education, not on athletics. Other students were concerned with the process of alternative consultation instead of a student referendum or vote.
The alternative consultation process included presentations to student groups and forums for the student body at large, explaining the fee and gauging student reactions, coupled with an A.S. Council discussion and a vote of support.
Although students voted in a referendum against the 2006 IRA fee, SDSU President Stephen L. Weber overrode the student vote and unilaterally passed the fee.
Gagandeep Singh, an undergraduate at SDSU at the time, became an outspoken opponent of the 2008 IRA fee, taking aim especially at the alternative consultation, a process he now calls “manipulative.” Singh said the presentations lacked some transparency and made rash selling points, such as the passage of the fee would increase the value of student degrees through increasing the prestige of the university.
“I don’t believe any form of dissent, either in the form of alternative forums or referendum, would have made a difference,” Singh said. “But I hope that it did allow some noise to be made for the future.”
Some A.S. council members in 2008 argued that a student referendum on the IRA fee was too expensive and that many of the students who voted would not properly grasp the complexity of the issue. Burns said that the Campus Fee Advisory Committee believed the alternative consultation process “would lend itself to a more informed response” from students.
“I hope whatever new (SDSU) fees are proposed to students are presented in a more honest and sincere manner,” Singh said.
Recently the Student Health Service fee was passed using the alternative consultation process, Burns said, this time drawing much less criticism. Burns said that many other universities use the alternative consultation process and that a top priority for moving forward is refining the process.
“The committee ran a good process,” Burns said. “We looked at other CSUs and looked at what they had done for alternative consultation and we went far beyond that. I think the bigger question going forward is, whatever the process, how do we better engage the students in the issues. That is really the bigger discussion that needs
to continue.”
