A student fee or student activity fee is a

fee A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contra ...

charged to students at a school, college, university or other place of learning that is in addition to any

matriculation Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now ...

and/or

tuition fee Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spending (by governments and other public b ...

s. It may be charged to support

student organization A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

s and student activities (for which it can be called an activity fee) or for intercollegiate programs such as

intramural sports Intramural sports are recreational sports organized within a particular institution, usually an educational institution, or a set geographic region. The term, which is chiefly North American, derives from the Latin words ''intra muros'' meaning " ...

or visiting academics; or, at a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

or college, as a means to remedy shortfalls in state funding (in which case it can often be called a technology fee). Further fees may then be charged for features and facilities such as insurance, health and parking provision.

United States

Constitutionality of activity fees

In the United States, the

constitutionality Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...

of mandatory student activity fees has been adjudicated several times by the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

. Most recently, the Court has ruled that public universities may subsidize political groups by means of a mandatory student activity fees so long as the manner in which such funds are dispersed are political neutral. Despite the commentary of the US Supreme Court, most student activity fee funds are today used by-and-large for non-political purposes.

Student fee cases

* ''

Rosenberger v. University of Virginia ''Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia'', 515 U.S. 819 (1995), was an opinion by the Supreme Court of the United States regarding whether a state university might, consistent with the First Amendment, withhold from stu ...

,'' 515 U. S. 819 (1995) *''

Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth ''Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth'', 529 U.S. 217 (2000), is a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that public universities may subsidize campus groups by means of a mandatory student ...

Examples

University of New Hampshire

The Student Activity Fee of the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...

is relatively unique amongst other comparable institutions of secondary education in that the fee is administered by its autonomous student government, free from faculty or staff advisors. During

fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ju ...

2019, all

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

students attending UNH paid $89 towards their fee.

References