$70 charge will be due at start of year, ASUP says
By Julius Calasicas
Starting next semester, UP students will no longer pay a $70 graduation fee to receive their diplomas, according to senior Adam Cyr, head of the ASUP Academic Concerns Committee.
Instead, the graduation fee will appear on students' tuition statements at the beginning of their senior year, Cyr said.
Additionally, the $125 technology fee that full-time students pay each semester will be incorporated into the overall cost of tuition. Transcript fees also will be eliminated, Cyr said.
"To those graduating next year, transcript fees (have) been dropped. Also the graduation fee has been moved to the tuition in the beginning of the year. The tech fee has also been moved to the beginning of the year," Cyr said at the Feb. 4 ASUP Senate meeting.
ASUP President David Gregg confirmed the upcoming changes.
Graduating senior Andrew Baldovin approves of the $70 fee appearing on students' tuition statements.
"I felt like I was getting ripped off when I wrote my check in October," he said.
Br. Donald Stabrowski, C.S.C., the UP provost, said information about the changes would be available once the new vice president for financial services assumes his role at the University on Monday. Stabrowski declined to comment further on the change.
Cyr said the change will eliminate an inconvenience faced by each class of graduating seniors and that the removal of transcript fees will mean students applying to graduate school will no longer have to pay $6 per transcript.
"I think this is great and wished it happened this year," Cyr said. "I applied to five different graduate schools."
Gregg also thinks that it's about time the cost of graduating is covered on the tuition statement.
"Students don't notice tuition," he said. "But ask a senior to write a $70 check for graduation and they'll ask, 'Why am I getting fined?' I think it's an annoyance and an eyebrow raiser."
Gregg said the $70 graduation fee was used for the processing of materials related to graduating, such as caps and gowns and diplomas.
