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Committee recommends fees for more than 18 credit hours

NoÃlle Bernard, Senior Staff Writer

A recommendation of the Strategic Priorities Task Force (SPT) presents the possibility for students to be charged for registering for courses that exceed the 18-hour credit limit in the future.

Since summer 2010, the SPT has been meeting to develop recommendations that will potentially contribute to Miami University's pending budget cuts.

According to Steve Wyatt, co-chair of the SPT, the committee's purpose is to design recommendations that have the smallest impact on students but will affect the university in the long run by regenerating lost revenue.

Thirty-four recommendations have been outlined in the SPT's discussion draft that the task force believes will "provide the necessary resources to allow the university to attract and retain high-quality faculty, staff and students; offer programs of excellence in strategically chosen areas; and reinvest in the university to allow continued innovation and growth."

Recommendation three stated the intention to "implement fees for course schedules in excess of 18 credit hours and possibly for expensive academic programming."

Wyatt said in the past the university charged students for registering for courses exceeding 18 hours. In recent years, Miami stopped charging the fee and is now reaping negative results.

"I think it makes fiscal sense to the university to charge students for extra classes," junior Grace Brown said. "I think that instead of holding over students' heads now, they should have always enforced it."

According to Student Body President Heath Ingram, this recommendation follows the directing of the majority of public universities in Ohio and it has the potential of generating about $2.3 million in revenue that was lost in the previous year.

"This is really a no-brainer recommendation that I see going through," Ingram said. "In the end, while it is unfortunate that we have to charge students more money to take extra classes, it helps preserve the overall student experience."

According to Wyatt, most students who register for more than 18 credit hours register with the intention of dropping a few courses.

"When a student signs up for more classes than they intend on taking, it has two effects on all of the students," Wyatt said. "It takes up a seat that may be what some other student needed and it also may lead us to offer more courses than we may need to. Either way that drives up the cost of education for every student."

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According to Wyatt, the purpose is to keep all costs for the university down and insist that students become more contentious about the courses they need verses want to take.

"What happens is that students will be more thoughtful in terms of, ‘Do I really want this course or am I just taking it so I can have a free option to take two or three courses and drop the one I don't want?'" Wyatt said.

The second part of the recommendation relates to how certain major programs are more expensive to offer than others and the money needed is taken directly from the university. The proposal is that programs charge students a necessary fee to take the more expensive courses.

The SPT recommends that charges for specific classes "should not be used for university-wide needs but should be retained by the program, school or college to help offset the higher costs and preserve the quality and competiveness of the program(s)."

"We already do this for labs," Wyatt said. "It's just a way to keep the overall cost (for the university) down."

However, the SPT is still in the preliminary stage of their recommendations and has the ability to change these recommendations, as they are continually taking questions and suggestions. The final report is due Oct. 15 and the decision will be passed over to President David Hodge and his executive council. If passed, they'll be implemented by December.

"These recommendations are all in the draft phase," Ingram said. "We don't exactly know what the final report will look like yet, much less, we don't really know what the board of trustees will ultimately approve."

Ingram said student should become actively involved in the decision-making process by attending forums, reading the proposals and asking questions.

"I really want students to have a part in the process," Ingram said. "In the end, if students have a voice in this task force and in this process, the end product will be of much higher quality than if students did not have a strong part in developing the final report."

The task force will be hosting an open forum at 5 p.m. Sept. 22 in Hall Auditorium. The forum will present all recommendations and offers a chance for students to make their opinions known.