Room, board rates increase

By ERIN STROUT
Collegian Staff Writer

HERSHEY -- Students living on campus or buying meal plans next year will have to fork over more money as the University Board of Trustees approved an increase in the room and board rate at the meeting Saturday.

Starting next Fall semester, the charge for an undergraduate student living in a double room and purchasing the basic meal plan will increase by 3.06 percent -- totalling $2,020 per semester, said Tom Gibson, assistant vice president for the Office of Housing and Food Service Operations. Meal plan three is the average plan students choose, providing about 13 meals per week.

The increase is slightly less than last year, when room and board was raised by 3.4 percent.

Gibson cited several reasons for the increase, including a rise in expenditures for supplies, services, maintenance and residence life. The total expense increase is $2,898,000 for 1995-96, he said.

Because Housing and Food Services is self-supporting, increases are necessary to cover the costs of payroll, inflation, utilities and telephone services, Gibson said.

Trustee Ben Novak expressed concern about the money that goes to administrative overhead and not into areas directly affecting students.

"Starting two years ago we added overhead -- it doesn't go to room and board but to administrative cost," Novak said, explaining that $1.8 million is going to the central administration and not to improvements in dorm living.

But Gary Schultz, senior vice president for finance, disagreed with Novak, stating that any self-supporting part of the University must pay the overhead as part of its maintenance level.

Trustee Ted Junker said the rationalizing comes from the efforts of the University Future Committee, which undertook a three-year plan to reduce the budget by 10 percent in the University's separate budgeting units.

And students at University Park are not the only people who will be affected next year. Medical students at the University's Hershey Medical Center will experience a 3.1 percent rise in their housing costs.

Trustee Marian U. Coppersmith Fredman asked if any options for spreading payment out over the year have been considered. Currently, graduate students are given the chance to pay monthly through the bursar's office, Gibson said.

"We ought to give both (undergraduates and graduates) the option," Coppersmith Fredman said. "It might ease the burden."