The Observer, November 17, 2006
Volume XXXIX, Issue 11
Technology fee to be shared by all students
Starting fall 2007, students will be seeing changes in the Case student technology fee.
In the past, the fee has only affected residential undergraduates, staying at $400 per year since 2003. Graduate students and undergrads living off-campus are currently exempt from the fee.
The new technology fee will amount to $426 per year for students registered for four or more credit hours and $100 for students registered for three or fewer credit hours.
The fee will be charged to all students, including commuters, graduate students, and those on study abroad and co-op. As all students benefit from campus technology, this creates a more equitable arrangement for all Case students, rather than collecting the fee from only 3000 on-campus undergrads.
This will provide a large increase in income for Case technology services, which hopes to bring in over $4 million per year from students.
Some of this money will go to traditional technology service expenses such as IT employee salaries, campus Internet, and software licenses. The majority, however, will go to a revamped PeopleSoft student information system.
This new system, which is expected to cost $13 million, will replace the old one that has been around since 1989.
Until this point, small adjustments have been made to make the system adequate for student needs. The increased income will give technology services the opportunity to start from scratch, getting rid of SOLAR and other obsolete computer applications.
The PeopleSoft system will make student information, including personal records and finance information, more easily accessible and the programs more user-friendly and reliable. It is being modeled after the eBay and Amazon websites. Students will begin to see changes in the spring of 2008.
Not all students are happy about this new fee implementation.
"If off-campus students have to pay the same amount as people living on campus, we should at least get something out of it," said Patrick Shively, a commuter student. "We still have to pay for our own Internet, etc."
In addition, the Graduate Student Senate has taken up an official position against the technology fee being charged to all students equally, especially since graduate students in different departments have different demands for IT services.
Case administrators, when asked if the fee will increase again next year, responded that it will probably rise with inflation.
