Letter: Studass Fee

This is a protest about the $19.00 studass fee I am doing two B.A.Hons papers part-time. I am at VUW long enough to go to two lectures a week, but no longer. For this I pay $19.00 but get nothing for it I am not the only one who feels this is not brilliantly fair business practice, and it seems like a bit albeit unpublicised blot of student thinking.

I realise it is hard for you to be fair. Many part-timers get more than their money's worth, many full-timers much less. Commonly studious students seem to be financing the incrowders, the 'radicals' etc, etc; all enrollers have to pay for things they don't want. But the present system cannot be as fair as it could be, because so many individuals are getting nothing for their $19.00.

I should suggest an alternative if I am to quarrel with the status quo. Why not do some campus research; find out some criterion by which a group or groups can be distinguished as likely non-participants in clubs cafeteria, etc. (eg. post graduates, people over 24 part-timers, post-grad, part-timers) and charge these people only ½ the fee. This could be more fair without getting too complex. As I see it, it is the duty of Studass to make every effort in this direction. To take $19.00, to collect $100,000 in such a crude and undiscriminating way (with no real explanation of where it goes and why) needs justification.

I wonder if we could not have published a statement by Studass on this.

Roy Harvey