Holly Buchanan Staff Writer

The Services and Activities fee raises upward toward $1 million a year that is used to support many campus programs such as Student Government, Student Activities, athletics, cheerleading, tutoring, the art gallery, music, theater, childcare, the Writers Studio and The Pioneer.

The S&A (services and activities) fee is included in all student’s tuition each quarter. The fee fluctuates depending on how many credits the student is taking. Students pay $10.58 per credit up to 10 credits and $6.15 per credit for 11 to 18 credits, or a maximum of $110.70.

“Students are not aware of the fee because unlike other fees that are listed on receipts, the S&A fee is built into tuition,” said Michael Parks, journalism department coordinator and Pioneer advisor. Each student’s fee is the same with an exception of Running Start students, who don’t pay for their tuition. According to Director of Student Life, Cameron Cox, there is not and never has been an opt-out option for students from the fee.

There are about 44 programs that are for students and paid by the students. Most students aren’t aware of where their money goes or what programs it pays for. “If the money is geared towards anything it should be geared towards something everyone can use,” said Pierce College student Katrina Thaves. “I don’t mind paying the money but I do want to know how it’s being used and if it’s for something good.”

Students may feel left out from the allocations of the fees but Cox explained that students are the number one decision makers. “Students have to be involved in the decision making it’s not an option to not have students involved,”Cox said.

The S&A process has an open hearing where anyone can come and talk to the members of the S&A committee and ask about how the money is allocated. Once the S&A committee finishes their work of deciding what programs to give a certain balance of the share to the student government from both campuses and the Administration reviews the budget and signs off on it. From there the paperwork goes to the Board of Trustees to verify the final outcome.

The S&A committee is made up of five students and a faculty member to provide guidance. The student government chooses the students who get appointed to the committee. The faculty member does not have any input on the voting or the outcome of the votes. Cox is also an advisor for the committee to provide the history of the S&A budgeting in order to help maintain current funding levels.

“If a program is asking for more money and you don’t see why, the committee will ask them to give a presentation on why they’re asking for that increase,” said Student Government President, Robert Lasker. The S&A committee will look at the three year history of the program, what their budget is, what they spend, and what they’re asking for now. If a program requests a budget and doesn’t use it then the budget is dropped.

“The goal is always to at least maintain current funding levels for the programs, that seems to be the impression I get from our students, they want to try and keep the current funding levels the same,” Cox said.

Each year the S&A funding information is updated and can be accessed by anyone by going to www.Pierce.ctc.edu and going to the Student Life tab. From there click on Student Leadership link and choose the campus of your location, then click on the Student Gov. tab and the S&A budget is located at the bottom of the web page.