News Editor
To give the California State Students Association financial dependence from the California State University system, the CSU is implementing a voluntary $4 fee across the 23 CSU’s that is scheduled to take effect in fall 2015.
Known as the Student Involvement and Representation Fee, the fee will be assessed in $2 increments at the beginning of the fall and spring quarters. Cal State Bakersfield students that are uninterested in paying the fee can opt out through their myCSUB accounts.
Ricardo Perez, vice president for external affairs and CSUB’s CSSA representative, said the fee is vital to continuing CSSA’s tradition of advocating for the interests of CSU students.
“CSSA is the largest statewide student association in the nation,” Perez said. “We don’t just focus on one level of advocacy; we have all of the levels of advocacy: Federal, locally, at the system and especially the state. That’s probably the biggest thing we do each year – working with the legislature and advocating for more funding for the CSU.”
Perez said two of the issues he advocated for this year were exempting student veterans from non-resident tuition and creating a network connecting former foster youth among the CSU system to investigate issues they face. Perez added that, under CSSA’s current economic model, universities must pay membership dues to participate in CSSA. With the implementation of this fee, Perez stated that CSUB’s membership dues – approximately $10,000 a year according to Perez – could be reallocated for campus use.
“Having to pay membership dues each year to be a part of CSSA – to be invited to the table – causes a strain on our budget,” Perez said. “That $10,000 that we pay, roughly, can be redirected back onto our campus, whether it be for advocacy or implement it to special projects or whatever the board wants to do with that money.”
Students altogether seemed ambivalent about the implementation of this fee. While some thought the amount was almost unnoticeable, others took issue with the sudden news regarding the fee.
“I think that a $4 fee is perfectly fine if it’s going to end up in giving more financial resources,” said Christian Crain, a junior geology major. “It’s such a small fee that there’s no reason to opt out.”
Other students are less supportive of the fee.
“The fee is ridiculous,” said Jordan Bailey, an 18-year-old physics major. “I really don’t like how this was so sudden and they took so long to tell us.” Perez said he thinks the CSSA chose to make the fee an opt-out rather than opt-in initiative because the latter would take more effort to convince students of the fee’s importance.
“This fee is about growing the organization and being independent,” Perez said. “It’s going to be extra effort to get students to say, ‘Please pay this tax; we need this tax,’ rather than try to convince students not to opt-out of the tax.”
About the CSSA Originally founded in 1958 as the Student Presidents Association, the CSSA now acts as an advocacy board on behalf of the more than 400,000 students in the CSU system.
According to the CSSA’s website, the organization supports and advocates for initiatives that improve college affordability. One of the CSSA’s recent accomplishments stems from 2005, when the CSSA successfully lobbied for an 8 percent student fee freeze.
