In one week, students will be asked to vote on six mandatory feesthat could add a total of $92 to their tuition. Never before has theuniversity brought this many fees at once to students. Throughoutthis week, The Daily Aztec will cover each fee in detail and give itsopinion on what fees should go forward.

A cup of coffee. A movie rental. A tank of gas.

For what it costs to buy any of these things, those who havestudied abroad say San Diego State students have a chance to givetheir peers an experience of a lifetime.

Next week, students will vote whether to pay $5 per semester toprovide funds for those who want to study abroad. This fee wouldgenerate between 350 and 650 travel scholarships in the amount of$500 or $1,000 each year, starting next fall.

Alan Sweedler, assistant vice president for InternationalPrograms, said students could use this money for anyuniversity-approved study abroad program at any time during the year.

Funds could be used to cover airfare, course fees, housing costsand living expenses. Scholarships would be allocated based onfinancial need and academic performance.

“I didn’t really know if I was going to be able to go,” said KarenAnn Daniels, a musical theater graduate student who spent a semesterstudying at Oxford. “I found myself scrounging to make my deposit.Scholarship money would have helped.”

Although this fee is the smallest on the referendum, it hasgenerated its share of opposition.

Last week, the Associated Students Council voted not to supportthe $5 fee. Members said, in comparison to the other fees on theballot, this fee would not help the majority of students and maydirect money away from areas that really need the support.

With about 34,000 students on campus, up to 2 percent of studentswould be provided travel scholarships each semester.

“Studying abroad is a choice,” councilmember Casey Hansen said. “Idon’t feel as if I should pay for a preference of yours.”

Councilmembers criticized the fee, saying students who didn’t wantto study abroad would be paying for others to go.

“I’m going to do everything I can to oppose this fee,”councilmember Mark Pajela said. “If we are going to pay for ourstudents to go to other countries, then we have to think about whatwe’re here for — to attend SDSU.”

The Campus Fee Advisory Committee — which advises UniversityPresident Stephen Weber on mandatory student fee increases — votedlast semester not to include the then-$10 study abroad fee in thismonth’s referendum.

Citing the current economic downturn, A.S. members on thecommittee said students should be asked to vote on areas that wouldbenefit the most people.

A few days later, Weber reinstated a $5 fee, saying studentsshould be able to decide what areas they want to pay for.

Boosting SDSU’s international programs is a goal of Provost NancyMarlin, who has said she wants at least 30 percent of graduates tohave an experience studying abroad.

Currently, the university is the No. 11 school in the country thatsent students to study in other countries in 1999-2000. About 450students studied in one of the university’s 180 internationalprograms in 40 different countries.

The university’s international business program was also recentlynamed the best study abroad program in the nation by the Institute ofInternational Education. One of the reasons was that SDSU requiresinternational business students to study in another country beforethey graduate.

According to results of a university survey conducted lastsemester, 43 percent of students said they were in favor of a $10study abroad fee.

Out of the six proposals, however, the study abroad fee generatedthe lowest support.

This is worrisome to students like theatre junior Brett Parsons,who is trying to find the money to spend a semester in London. Hesaid his parents were apprehensive about paying more for classes thathe could get credit for on campus, but were more receptive when hetold them scholarship money might be available.

Students who have studied abroad say, in light of Sept. 11, thatAmericans need to have knowledge of the world, culture, language andtraditions of countries other than the United States.

“We are so monolingual and so monocultural and, these days, sopatriotic that we don’t want to step off our own ground,” said AlisonMcNee, a graduate student in Latin American Studies who studied inMexico and in Brazil.

Studying abroad not only helps a person become more competitive inthe job market, it also opens a person’s mind to the world’sdiversity, said John Hirsch, international security and conflictresolution senior.

“There is a world outside of the United States and studying abroadis critical to any student in any discipline in any school in theUnited States,” he said.

“What’s $5 to give someone else that experience?”