Setting the price of student 'success'

Today marked the first of nine forums to address the looming Student Success Fee, a fee most students know little about. But it left students with more questions than answers.

Think of this fee as Provost Robert Koob’s last goodbye — Koob is retiring and will be replaced by Kathleen Enz Finken in February. At the forum, however, associate vice provost Kimi Ikeda was adamant that Enz Finken was on board with the fee from the get-go.

That was one of the only definite answers given at the forum.

It turns out, the student vote on Feb. 29 will serve strictly as an advisory measure for administration. Ikeda made it clear that the students will provide just that — advice. Whether we vote in favor of or 100 percent shut down the Success Fee, it doesn’t matter. It will only serve to inform the administration how we feel about the fee.

If we shoot down the fee, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong can still approve it for review by the California State University Chancellor Charles Reed. Reed could then, basically, overrule everyone and implement the fee. This was the case at Long Beach State in 2011.

But, rest assured, we can still vote and be heard on Feb. 29. The only downside is that most students have no idea what this fee will specifically go toward, and it appears as though no one on the administration side is ready to decide that either. When asked, both Ikeda and Cal Poly budget director Victor Brancart, who also spoke at the forum, made it clear that a committee comprised of students and administration will be assembled to decide where the funds will go. That committee would consist of at least Armstrong, Kiyana Tabrizi — the Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) president — and a 4:7 ratio of students to administrators.

The problem is that the final funding allocation decisions wouldn’t be announced until March, after the fee is expected to be passed and the decision, as well as the first $160 fee payment, is out of our hands.

Ikeda did say the goal of the fee is to be used to promote a Cal Poly mantra: “We don’t want to be like everybody else. Cal Poly is both academic and co-curricular.”

Basically, Ikeda said the money will be used to promote Cal Poly’s emphasis of “Learn By Doing” both inside and out of the classroom, as well as create students who have dabbled in everything from engineering to marching band.

This, however, raises the question of why we are comparing ourselves to other universities.

The fee was proposed to help offset education budget cuts by Gov. Jerry Brown, yes. But why are we being compared to University of California (UC) campuses and their tuition costs? We are not a UC, people come to Cal Poly because it is a CSU that, when accepted, guarantees its students a public higher education — the keyword being public — for a price less than that at UCs.

It appears as though the only keyword the administration is concerned with right now is “success.” After all, it is a Student “Success” Fee that was proposed. But why isn’t anyone telling us, the students who are supposed to be doing the succeeding, what the money will go toward if the fee is passed?

In the end we won’t know exactly what the money will fund until March at the earliest.

Until then, we have to vote on this arbitrary idea of a Student Success Fee that may or may not benefit us. How are we expected to make an informed decision about whether the fee will be beneficial or not if there is no proof of where the money will be used? Especially when Ikeda said at the forum that she wouldn’t “venture” that the money would be used for administrative costs?

That just leaves us left with mouths full of unanswered questions and ambiguous answers — until March.

Karlee Prazak contributed to this editorial.