De Anza students to vote on $4 per year student fee Feb. 22-26

A $4 per year fee increase will be voted on by De Anza College students in the online general election occurring Feb. 22 to 26.

The proposed Student Representation Fee will provide money for advocating student causes locally at De Anza and at the state level in Sacramento.

“There are a number of important issues related to college accessibility,” said Naeema Kaleem, DASB senator and chair of the finance committee. These issues, such as mental health, international and undocumented students, financial aid and textbook affordability, would benefit from the fee.

Miko Gomez, 19, speech and communications major, is opposed to the proposed fee.

“I’m not sure this is valuable to me,” she said. “If you want to be political, it’s on you. Why should I have to pay for it?”

Stephane Wills, 19, business major agrees.

“I don’t know how it would help me,” she said.

The DASB Senate first approved the ballot language Jan. 20, but needed make amendments Feb. 10, after La Voz found that the proposed fee was in violation of California law stating that students cannot be charged more than $4 per year. The original language approved by the DASB Senate would have overcharged students by $2 per year.

The revised ballot language proposes that students be charged $1.33 per quarter (not including the summer quarter), with half of that money staying at De Anza for local advocacy and the other half dedicated to statewide advocacy.

“We don’t want to over-charge students by exceeding the legal amount,” said Bret Watson, director of budget and personnel at De Anza. Watson said that there were multiple levels of approval in place to ensure that students are charged correctly, including review by both college administrators and the Foothill-De Anza board.

The California Education Code allows community colleges to charge $2 per semester to support representatives lobbying city, county, district and the state government.” DASB senators erroneously believed that this meant that quarter-system schools like De Anza could charge $2 per quarter.

These kinds of inconsistencies for colleges on the quarter system are to be expected when the legislature passes laws for the majority of community colleges that have semester terms, Watson said.

Students would able to opt out of the proposed fee, Watson said, but he added that very few students currently take advantage of opting out of fees. Students wishing to opt out need to provide a written request to the cashier before fees are paid or request a refund afterwards.

Having the opt-out option didn’t persuade Alejandro Alvarado, 20, communications major, to support the proposal.

“It would be better if we didn’t have to file an exclusion in writing or pay upfront,” he said.

The money raised from this fee would mobilize voters at De Anza in addition to advocating for issues important to community college students, Kaleem said.

Even with the lower fee, De Anza students are still less receptive to the fee.

“It sounds like a clever way to get two dollars from us,” said Jamin Kim, 25, computer science major. “I might be willing to pay if I understood the value of what I was getting.”

Students will vote on the proposed Student Representation Fee in the DASB Senate general election online at MyPortal from Feb. 22 to 26.