Parks College students tried to fight for their rights Tuesday night at the two-and-a-half-hour town hall meeting concerning flight fees.
Parks Dean Bjong Wolf Yeigh, Ph.D., began the meeting by presenting a spreadsheet detailing the expenditures of Parks in a given fiscal year.
"We considered several proposals, and decided that $3,500 a year was the least intrusive to the students," Yeigh said. "It's still a huge burden, we understand that."
Yeigh said that one of the proposals that was considered was terminating the flight program altogether, given the debt it incurs each year and the fact that theUniversity can no longer afford to subsidize its arrears.
Even with the institution of $3,500 a year flight fees for the 180 students in the ASPP program, Parks will still not be able to cover its operating costs.
The flight fees will gross about $630,000 for the department in 2006. Added to the revenue from flight students' tuition, it will yield $901,972, which only accounts for half of the $2.5 million it costs to keep the program afloat.
"This is not an equation where you just plug in money; there are people involved," said sophomore Jake Kriegler.
Even charging students $10,000 in flight fees like Embry-Riddle or Florida Tech. would leave the program $0.5 million short.
"[But] that would be far beyond what anybody could afford to manage in a short period of time," Yeigh said.
Senior Michael Jarmon spoke on behalf of the financial aid dependant pilots. "We have all the financial aid that we're going to get, and it takes some time to get a loan done. Some of us just can't pay it, period. I'm going to be flipping burgers at McDonald's and flying on the weekends."
One student told Yeigh that he didn't know if he would be able to continue with the program because of the added financial strain.
"All of a sudden, students are expected to carry the burden? How does that make you feel?" he asked.
"Cruddy," Yeigh said.
"It was decided, and unfortunately I do not have a magic wand to make this disappear," said Yeigh.
Students kept asking why the fees weren't being placed exclusively on the incoming freshmen.
"We came to this school under the impression that flight fees were included in the price of tuition. We were misled," said Kriegler. "Incoming students-charge them as much as you want."
Yeigh said they considered grandfathering in the fees, but the administration determined that the current student has already "benefited from the infrastructure" of the program. That $3,500 fee is being levied on all students in the Aviation Science/Professional Pilot program, regardless of their status-even those students who have finished the 13 flight credits they need.
"How is this not flat-out legal extortion? If you're done with flight, why do we have to pay flight fees?" asked a student.
"One could argue that you benefited from the infrastructure, the wear and tear on the aircraft," Yeigh said.
The Parks camp e-mailed incoming freshman families last Monday, informing them of the added cost so they could decide before May 1, when the first tuition deposits are due, whether or not they still wished to attend SLU.
The admissions office has been fielding calls from enraged prospective students and their parents who feel "misled." Yeigh said that they expected admissions to take a hit as a result of the fees.
Word from the admissions office is that tuition deposits for incoming freshmen enrolling in Parks are down by 60 percent, with the May deadline looming less than a week away.
"We've had slightly more students apply to the program this year, about 105 percent from last year. The last report I've heard is that we are at 89 percent admissions from where we were last year in terms of students committed," Yeigh said.
Several of the students commented on the fact that incoming students are forewarned about the institution of the fees, while current students were not extended the same courtesy, the announcement coming only two weeks before the academic year is over.
"I've done some research on how the PCC [President's Coordinating Council] works," said Parks senator Joe Cirillo. "The budget is finalized in December; There had to be an echoing of this decision in those three months."
Yeigh said that the department was handed down an abstract number from the PCC, and that the department budget wasn't complete until 10 days ago.
"This was just thrown on us. We inquired about it [the rumor] a long time ago, and we were told 'no, you're out of your minds,'" Cirillo said.
One of the students' chief concerns was that since the administration was setting the precedent of sneak-attack fee levying on the students, that there would be no reason for them to not bump the fees up arbitrarily next year. Paul Jackson, of the Office of the Provost, said that they would keep the fee at $3,500 for at least three years to study its effects on the program.
Yeigh supplanted the students by saying that the department is going to form a committee to go over the finer points of the program, and the effect flight fees will have on it as a whole, as well as to revamp the curriculum and making de-rigueur improvements. He asked that students elect two students that will represent their concerns to the committee and will be active in making decisions regarding the fate of the program.
"I'm willing to listen to everything you have to say," said Yeigh. "I will do my best."
Yeigh said that when Parks was at the Cahokia, Ill., location, a $4,000 flight fee was in place, but was suspended eight years ago when the college moved to the SLU campus.
"That was never meant to be permanent," said Yeigh.
Kriegler riposted, saying, "I don't feel much sympathy, you just painted for us why this happened, but we didn't sit down eight years ago and talk about this. You never said, 'Hey, we're doing something kind of shady, and in eight years it might end."
