On Monday, I received my syllabi and,

like most of the 28,000 ISU students, I quickly glanced over it as

the teacher talked about it, then gazed off into space for the

remainder of the class period. As I enter into my fourth year at

Iowa State, I’m pretty familiar with general grading policies,

academic dishonesty, special accommodations, etc. We are all

capable of reading even if most students won’t do it. However, in

my merchandising class, I noticed something new: course fees.

I’m used to paying lab fees for my

design classes. These fees cover things like fabric, thread,

machine maintenance, notions and sometimes the occasional field

trip. The course fees the syllabus in my merchandising class went

on to explain covered things such as “exams, instructional copies,

VR software costs, and copies/presentation materials.”

I was slightly confused. Aren’t things

like my exams what I’m paying Iowa State thousands of dollars a

year for? The instructor went on to say that if we needed to make

copies or prints for our projects, we could keep the receipt and be

reimbursed for them if they were done at an on-campus printing

site.

I also happen to know from working at

Campus Organizations Accounting that receiving reimbursements is

extremely inconvenient and I’m willing to bet that most students

won’t want to go through the hassle. Well, the college can just

pocket that extra money from the fees then. I’m fairly certain my

three exams for the course won’t cost $25, and I don’t even know

what the hell VR software is. I know, I’m not the most

technologically savvy, but that is beside the point.

So, this is how the College of Human

Sciences is making ends meet. Starting a few years ago they started

requiring students to print their own syllabi, and now we have to

pay for our tests, which I have concluded from discussions about

blue books is possibly slightly illegal given the fact that

students, in essence, must pay for their grade. Students pay their

tuition, which is an agreement between them and the university that

they will receive a set amount of education, services, etc. for the

price they pay. However, the university breaches that agreement

when it forces the students to pay an additional “tax” in order to

receive a final grade.

But the university will continue to

cut the budgets to poor little programs like apparel, educational

studies and hospitality management and force them to scrimp and

scrape to make ends meet at the expense of their students. All

while Iowa State makes calls to donors asking them to pay for a new

scoreboard and football facility instead of supporting the actual

educational institution that allows collegiate sports to exist. So

to those of you that actually read the newspaper, say something.

And to the rest of the student population … continue to live in

quiet oblivion.