Undergraduate students can breathe a sigh of relief after the Arizona Board of Regents moved Thursday to disapprove all new undergraduate fees and increases to existing fees.
The 7-2 vote came in response to a system many regents felt was flawed, though concerns did not transfer to graduate fees, which all passed unanimously.
The decision to veto the proposed fees came in contrast to much student comment during the call to the audience at the beginning of the meeting when 10 ASU and UA students told the regents they were ready for fees.
This included Undergraduate Student Government senators Jonathan Confer and Cledwyn Jones, who spoke in favor of the honors fee.
"We think this proposal is perfectly set to go ahead," Jones said of the $125-per-semester fee returning students would pay. "[Honors students] are not only willing to pay this fee but they are eager to pay this fee."
Regents understood students were in favor of the fees, but feared tuition setting would become a two-step process, with tuition being passed one month and fees the next. In what regents' President Gary Stuart said was the most difficult vote of his five-year stint with the board, he described the fee setting as a "failure of process."
"We're not ready to approve fees in the abstract," he said.
Stuart said he understood students know what they want but said many don't realize the effect the fees would have on other areas of University funding and state law.
Regent Jack Jewett raised the concern that diminishing state support would continue if fees were passed by giving the Legislature another reason to withhold funding. He said the universities have gone from being supported by the state, to being assisted by the state, to simply being in the state.
After the vote, Regent Fred Boice suggested a committee be established in the coming months to investigate the fee-setting process for undergraduates.
Stuart emphasized student involvement with the committee.
"This one, in part, should have significant involvements of student leaders," he said.
USG President Sophie O'Keefe-Zelman took the meeting's outcome as a good sign.
"I think the decision was reflective of the regents' desire to have more student involvement," she said. "I think it's a strong statement about student involvement in the tuition- and fee-setting process."
Graduate students spoke during the call to the audience as well, telling regents they felt surprised when the graduate fees were introduced and asked for more student input in the process.
Reach the reporter at rkost@asu.edu.
