Sean McMinn
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College of Liberal Arts (CLA) students could be paying $129 per quarter on top of their current fees under a plan the Campus Fee Advisory Committee agreed to move forward earlier this month.
Based on a proposal from CLA Dean Doug Epperson, the advisory committee will hold a vote for liberal arts students in February on a college-based fee increase, Associated Students, Inc. President and agricultural business senior Jason Colombini said after a Wednesday meeting of the committee.
Colombini and the committee’s other six members finalized language of the ballot, as well as a list of pros and cons for the fee in Wednesday’s meeting.
The fee increase would bring the CLA college-based fee on par with the rest of the Cal Poly’s colleges, which all stand at $291 per quarter. The CLA fee is now $162.
California State University Chancellor Timothy White would need to approve the fee increase before it goes into effect.
In the past, administrators considered CLA programs low-cost compared to those offered in other parts of campus, such as the lab-heavy colleges of engineering and science and math, Colombini said.
Today, he said, that thinking is outdated.
“It unfairly supports the stigma that exists that CLA is not up there with the rest of the colleges,” Colombini said.
Colombini, who serves as co-chair on the Campus Fee Advisory Committee with Interim Vice President of Administration and Finance Stan Nosek, said he supports a plan to eventually increase the fee. Nosek said he does not want to take a position on the fee, but he added that the need for high-cost equipment and resources in the CLA in on par with other colleges on Cal Poly’s campus.
Nosek, who began working at the university during summer, said his assessment was based on his son’s experience at Cal Poly when he earned a degree in the CLA.
All four students on the seven-member fee advisory committee support the plan to move forward considering the fee increase, Colombini said. Two of those students are in the CLA.
The vote on the fee is scheduled from Feb. 24 to Feb. 28. Leading up to it, there will be a 30-day period where the CLA is expected to discuss the proposal between its students, faculty and staff, Nosek said.
An earlier version of this article stated the College of Liberal Arts college-based fee is $239.19 and all other colleges are $347.19. In fact, the College of Liberal Arts fee is $162 and the rest of the college-based fees are $291, leading to a proposed increase of $129. It has since been corrected.