Students Must Send E-Mail To Opt Out of UC Fee

Students wishing to opt-out of the payment of a termbill fee that goes to support Undergraduate Council (UC) allotments to student groups and House Committees will find their task a bit more complicated this year than last.

Avoidance of the $75 charge, known alternately as the “Undergraduate Council Fee” or “Student Activities Fee,” will require an e-mailed statement to an FAS e-mail address—ucoptout@fas.harvard.edu—stating basic information along with the student’s reason for opting out of the charge, according to instructions included in the July termbill.

Last year’s undergraduate council fee, by contrast, could be waived simply by clicking a link provided on the termbill Web Site.

Assistant Dean of Harvard College Paul J. McLoughlin II, who worked on the changes in the opt-out policy, said yesterday that while he had no desire to make the process “prohibitively difficult,” the new system did give him hope “that more people will have to at least think about opting out.”

“There’s a lot of people who…are clearly misinformed about what the student activities fee does,” McLoughlin said.

Under the new system, students sending opt-out e-mails receive acknowledgments confirming their messages’ receipt and reminding them that “the UC fee is the primary source of funding for recognized student organizations…at Harvard College.”

Both McLoughlin and the directions included on the July termbill stressed that all opt-out requests will be honored, regardless of the reason given for waiving the fee.

McLoughlin and UC President Ryan A. Petersen ’08 did not offer strong sentiments as to whether they believed fewer students would opt-out of the fee as a result of the new policy. McLoughlin reported that 205 people had elected to forgo the fee as of Wednesday.

A total of 1491 students—22 percent of the student body—opted out of the UC fee for the 2006-07 school year, according to a November memo circulated by McLoughlin. The number was down from 27 percent the year before. Incidentally, the same year, the fee was increased from $60 to $75.

Despite the improvement, the opt-out rate led to a UC budget last year that was about $110,000 less than it might have been with a 100 percent payment rate.

While McLoughlin could not say for certain whether the opt-out rate appeared to be lower than at this time last year, he said that—regardless of the final monetary figure—the new policy would offer previously nonexistent feedback regarding the mindsets of those who chose to avoid the fee.

“The administration gets nothing from making the process a little bit harder,” McLoughlin said. “We actually have more work now; we have absolutely no vested interest in this except maybe giving the UC more data about why people are opting out.”

McLoughlin added that, the advantages of feedback notwithstanding, the old system of a simple opt-out link would be reinstated if the opt-out numbers do not decline this year. Any feedback circulated to the UC would be on aggregate basis, he said, revealing none of the names of those who decided to opt-out.

Petersen said he was pleased with the fact that opt-out requests now require justification.

“I think students should have a reason if they’re going to opt-out,” Petersen said. “Every student does benefit from the termbill money, so it ought to be a well-considered decision on the individual’s part to opt-out.”

McLoughlin drew on a survey of around 15 peer institutions to help formulate the changes to the student activities fee policy. The survey revealed that Harvard had the lowest fee and was one of only two schools with an optional student activities charge.

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.