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Student Fees for Sustainability

Student fees are a popular source of funding for sustainability because there are usually clear and straightforward processes in place for accessing them. Moreover, when they have been proposed, dedicated student fees for sustainability are generally approved by large majorities in student elections. There are two ways of funding sustainability measures with student fees:

• Dedicated student fees are fees of set amount that are dedicated for a specific purpose, in this case, some sort of sustainability purpose. Dedicated student fees can either be mandatory, meaning all students are required to pay them, or optional, meaning that students may choose whether or not to pay the fee. Optional fees can be structured to be either opt-in, where the default is non-payment of the fee, or opt-out, where payment of the fee is the default. Dedicated student fees have been used to fund a wide variety of sustainability purposes, including renewable energy purchases, hiring of sustainability staff, purchases of universal access transit passes for students, green buildings, and the creation of funding bodies for sustainability projects.
  
  
• Budget cycle to budget cycle allocation refers to funding that is determined periodically (usually each year) through a student government administered budgeting process. It is a less secure form of funding than dedicated student fees since it must compete with other funding possibilities in the budgeting process every budget cycle. This type of funding is commonly used to fund student sustainability organizations and has also been used to for larger sustainability purposes.

The resources presented here focus on dedicated student fee programs.

Mandatory student fees

• General sustainability purposes
• Alternative transportation
• Green building
• Renewable energy

Optional student fees

• Renewable energy

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