PAY TO PLAY: SOUTHEAST STUDENTS MAY PAY MORE NEXT FALL FOR DESIGN OF STUDENT UNION

Students at Southeast Missouri State University don't keep fit in a grimy gym with rummage-sale-quality equipment.

They sweat it out on new exercise machines and on polished basketball courts in a brightly lit, squeaky-clean building with a curved, glass-wall entrance that would put many health clubs to shame.

But it doesn't come free.

Like their peers on college campuses across America, students are shelling out money to fund everything from recreation centers like Southeast's to campus concerts.

Southeast Missouri State University students, who already pay $9.70 in general fees per credit hour, generating over $1.7 million annually, could pay an added $1 per credit hour in the next school year to finance schematic design work for a proposed student union.

School officials say each $1 fee raises about $180,000 per academic year. Students currently pay per-credit-hour fees of $4.25 to retire bonds for the Recreation Center and new recreation fields -- 44 percent of general fees -- plus $1.12 to fund Student Government and a wide range of student activities: $1.38 for athletics, $2.50 to fund computer labs and 45 cents for the university's Center for Health and Counseling.

"Students realize that if you want something you have to pay for it," said Student Government President Luke Dalton.

Student leaders and a university committee have proposed renovating and expanding 40-year-old Parker Hall for use as a student union. Parker Hall is near the center of campus, a selling point with project proponents who want a place where commuter students and those who live on campus can gather.

The university's budget review committee has endorsed the proposed fee, and Student Government will consider the issue when it meets Monday night. The Board of Regents could approve the added fee when it meets May 4.

Student leaders say Southeast students will pay $10.70 per credit hour to fund projects and campus activities they desire. At that rate, an undergraduate student taking 12 credit hours of courses in the fall semester and a similar course load in the spring 2002 semester would pay $257 in general fees.

What the state funds

The state of Missouri funds construction of academic buildings on its college campuses, but it won't pay for non-academic structures such as residence halls, recreation centers and student unions.

Universities typically issue bonds for such projects and then pay off the bonds with money from student fees over a period of years.

Southeast built the Student Recreation Center adjoining the Show Me Center that way. The center opened in 1987. Two years ago, it was expanded, also at student expense.

Dalton said it is students, not school administrators, who are pushing for recreation centers and student unions on college campuses.

Six years ago, students at the University of Missouri-St. Louis voted to build and operate a $26 million student center, financing it largely with student fees. The university began assessing students for the Millennium Center even before it opened last fall. This year's fee is $140.

The proposed Parker Commons fee of $1 per credit hour would pay for consultants to find out what students want in a student union and how much it would cost.

A consulting firm could be hired this summer and conclude its work by the end of the fall semester, said Loren Rullman, director of student auxiliary services and chairman of the Parker Commons Committee.

Student support

Rullman said a 1997 survey of 400 students found that 57 percent would support a fee hike to build a new student center.

"Students said they would pay a fee, but students want to know what will be in it and how much it would cost," Rullman said.

Student Paul Dobbins, the son of university President Dr. Ken Dobbins, serves on the Parker Commons Committee.

Dobbins said it is important to build a student union that provides the services and activities that students want and at a reasonable price. "This is going to determine what reasonable is," he said of the proposed design and feasibility work.

Dobbins said the proposed $1-per-credit-hour fee won't pay for the cost of a new student union. That would require an even larger fee, he said.

The Parker Commons Committee envisions the proposed fee as a permanent charge that would be used first for planning and later for other costs associated with the project.

If the project doesn't get off the ground, the fee would go to help fund other building projects or improvements students might want, Dobbins said.