WSU board approves technology fee

PULLMAN – Full-time Washington State University undergraduate students on the Pullman campus will begin paying a $20 technology fee each semester this fall.

The WSU board of regents unanimously approved a motion to implement the fee – which will now need to be approved annually – during a meeting Friday at the Tri-Cities campus. The fee will generate an estimated $750,000 annually and will be used for technology like wireless printers and interactive whiteboards.

Regent Ryan Durkan of Seattle said the students “tasked themselves” with the fee and presented it to the board’s finance and audit committee Thursday, which was supportive of the idea. Members of the Associated Students of WSU proposed the fee based on requests from others in the student body and approved it earlier last week.

The student fee has to be used for projects that can be fully funded from the fee pool itself because the fee has to be reapproved each year, Durkan said. A committee led by undergraduate students will determine how the money is spent. Students listed wireless printing, improving wireless Internet coverage on campus and upping the number of smartboards – interactive, touch-sensitive whiteboards that students can use with their computers – in study lounges as priorities.