The Institutional Fee Review Board, a group at Fort Lewis College that reviews student fees for the college, meets once a year to review proposed student fees.
The IFRB review is the first step for new fees to be approved. The board is reviewing student fees that are charged per credit hour, Mark Mastalski, the chair of the IFRB, said.
If a fee is approved by the IFRB, it goes on to be reviewed by the Fort Lewis College Budget Committee. Upon approval from them, the proposal is reviewed by the board of trustees and ultimately implemented, Mastalski said.
The board is made up of 10 members: three staff members and seven students. The staff members are not voting members, he said.
“The purpose of reviewing fees is to provide student input on the appropriateness of the fees,” Michele Peterson, the associate vice president for finance and administration, said.
Fee proposals are made available to departments in mid-September, Mastalski said. After the proposals are made available, the applicants have one month to submit proposals, and the IFRB meets about a month after that to review the proposals and accept presentations from the proposers.
The IFRB reviews two types of student fees. These fees are the mandatory campus-wide fees and the course-specific fees that apply to students per credit hour taken, Peterson said.
There are other student fees that the IFRB does not review, Mastalski said.
Existing fees are not reviewed if no changes have occurred, but newly requested fees are reviewed annually, Peterson said.
“The IFRB process is an annual process,” Peterson said.
Fees being reviewed this year include increases in course specific fees for four biology classes, Marketing 362, innovative month programs, the athletic training program, Geology 496, and two adventure education classes, Mastalski said.
The fees that are being reviewed this week will take effect in the fall of 2015, Peterson said.