Thursday, June 10, 1999 | 11:35 a.m.
Nevada college students' free ride on the information superhighway may soon be coming to a halt.
An agenda item for the Nevada Board of Regents meeting in Carson City June 17-18 calls for a $4-per-credit technology fee to offset the cost of computer labs and services at the state's universities and community colleges.
To the average university student who takes 24 credits per year that would mean $96 more in annual tuition costs starting this fall. To the average community college student who takes 12 credits that would mean $48 more per year.
"Before I would support this I would want a lot of student input, and this is a bad time of year to get student input because a lot of them have gone home," Regent Steve Sisolak said today.
"I would want to look at the use of discretionary funds and other sources because this is a pretty heavy financial burden for the students."
Vice Chancellor Jane Nichols, who oversees academic affairs for the University and Community College System of Nevada, said the issue arose after school presidents examined their budgets in the wake of the recent legislative session where lawmakers did not fund a technology support request.
"The presidents were reluctant to recommend this, but the students could suffer (from a lack of computer labs, equipment and resources)," Nichols said. "It is my impression they looked carefully at the source of funding."
Nichols said the trend across the country is for colleges and universities to charge students technology fees.
Nichols noted that even though a significant number of students own their own computers and pay for their own Internet services the university has to maintain computers in the classrooms to more effectively instruct students.
"It is not just the Internet costs," she said. "The real issue is providing computer support for classroom instruction. There is different software for each discipline and software changes and has to be loaded on the computers.
"It is essential in higher education that we teach with state of the art technology because that is the world they will go out and live in."
Sisolak says, however, that school officials should have better "prioritized their funding" and put a stronger emphasis on the need for technology funds in their budget requests, rather than now seek the money from the students.
"Although tuition is low, the high cost of books is one of the biggest complaints I hear from students," Sisolak said. "Now, we are considering asking them to pay for the technology. We may be pricing them right out of the picture."
archive
