They say that you get what you pay for. And that saying, as U of T proves, is crap. While you’re here, you can set yourself up for a life of intellectual exploration, artistic challenge, or if you can’t think of anything else, curing AIDS. Or you can spend four years hacking through coursework and graduate just as confused as you were when you got here. Either way, you paid exactly the same fees. Still, it helps to know what you could get. Historically, tuition fees have made up 84 to 87 per cent of what undergraduate students pay at U of T. The non-tuition fees you pay entitle you to take part in a range of services, clubs, and student societies, from the Hart House debating club, which I frankly don’t understand, to archery, which will keep you alive after the bombs hit. Simply by virtue of being a registered, paid-up student, you’re a member of a number of organizations who need your support, and get it. Maybe you’d like to know what they have to offer.
Student Societies
A full-time undergrad, as most incoming U of T students are, will find themselves shelling out $800 to $1200 in non-tuition fees, depending on their faculty and college. The typical student’s non-tuition dollar divides roughly 60-40 between university-run “student services” and “student societies”, not to be confused with Lord of the Flies. The university collects all of the money from you, as you know, when you pay your invoice at the beginning of the term, and distributes that 40 per cent amongst about 40 groups, which do not generally get one per cent each. It’s important to note that the university collects fees to fund these societies because (according to their information packet) it believes those societies reflect the will of the majority of students, as expressed by elected student reps. And, in most cases, expressing the will of the students through elected reps is what these societies do. The big five are the Association of Part Time Students, the Graduate Students Union, the Engineering Society, the Scarborough Campus Students Union, and, biggest of all, the University of Toronto Students Union (sadly no longer called “SAC”). Between them, they receive about 87 per cent of student cash. Fortunately for your budget, you fall under the umbrella of only one of these groups, unless you are an engineering student. In that case, you must pay EngSoc dues as well as tithing the appropriate union or association. But as an engineer, you’ve chosen a life of humiliation and despair, so get used to it. The thirty-five smaller student societies are groups like the Arts & Science Students Union, the residence councils of each non-federated college (more on that soon), and unions that look after dental students and student teachers. And a very special three percent of student society fees go towards funding campus media, including U of T’s gift to radio, CIUT-FM (1.1 per cent); and U of T’s unofficial journalism school, The Varsity, which, because of a successful levy campaign last year, now controls its own 0.8 per cent of the student society fee pie. The non-federated colleges are University College, New College, Woodsworth, and Innis (the George Clooney of colleges). Federated Universities, on the other hand, have their own clubs and societies, which their students pay for using their own money. FUs are special, and reserve some of their rights to pay their own way to instate their own rules. The FUs are St. Mike’s, Vic, and especially Trinity (the Brian Mulroney of colleges). Even though student society fees are understood to reflect the will of the majority, the university lets you receive refunds on some portions. If you already have supplemental health and dental insurance, for instance, you can cash in your student policy. Some fee rebates are a little more controversial, like taking back the $1.50 UTSU members pay to support the Women’s Centre, or SCSU’s 50-cent Frontier Students for Literacy levy. Altogether, the health coverage rebates can total up to $208, while the more petty rebates can bring somewhere in the neighborhood of seven dollars. That is, if you can summon the nerve to demand back the 25 cents you paid to their Health Initiatives in Developing Countries program.
Athletics
So that’s the student societies slice of the pie. The other 60 per cent of your money put towards student services is used to fund programs operated by the university. The largest share of this funds campus athletics. If you’re a downtown campus student, you’re a fee-paying, card-carrying member of the Athletic Centre, a massive, bunker-like multi-gym sporting such features as an Olympic pool, an indoor track, and a free sports medicine clinic. The one time I used the latter facility, I went in complaining about a sore knee and a distinguished doctor reorganized the joint with his bare hands. I guess I recommend it. Yearly the St. George athletics fee comes to around $250, or fifty bucks for a part-time student. Students at UTSC and UTM pay a much lower fee than those downtown, for the good reason that athletic facilities on their campuses are smaller. Erindale students’ $180 athletics fees and levies buy them a fall and winter membership at the Recreation, Athletic & Wellness Centre—a smaller, suburban version of the AC. Scarborough students pay about $200 for a smallish athletic facility that includes a double gymnasium, a dance studio, and eleven outdoor tennis courts.
Hart House
All U of T students pay Hart House dues as well: $130 per year for downtown students, and a paltry $4 for satellite campus students who, after all, can’t make it down to Hart House very often. At the moment, Hart House is the closest thing U of T has to a student hub. Their in-house athletics program includes a pool, an aerobics room, and personal trainers you can book for a $28 personal consultation. They also operate the Hart House farm, a country retreat that regularly throws parties with a delicious maple-syrup or apple-cider theme. As a member, you can actually book space there for yourself and guests. Presumably, you can drive out there all by yourself and spend a week playing banjo in one of their cabins. Once a year, a contingent of cyclists rides from Hart House to the farm, a 70-kilometre odyssey. At last count, Hart House also operated some thirty-nine clubs, ranging from the aforementioned debating club to the rifle and revolver clubs that used to meet in the downstairs firing range (recently shut down by administrators sensitive to gun violence concerns). They also run a jazz choir, a bridge club, and the only Finnish exchange program you’ll ever need.
… and everything else
The rest of your student services dollar buys an array of resources which, though dry, are worth having a list of: a career centre, learning skills and counseling sessions, a family care office, the First Year Initiative and Graduate Student Initiative, the International Student Centre, Psychiatric Services, and Health Services. The latter take care of you with subsidized immunization, birth control, general checkups, health diagnostics, medical prep for travel, help quitting smoking, nutrition counseling, and writing doctor’s notes for your profs (when you deserve one). Got all that? There are those of us who consider all of this a good deal., others disagree. But unlike student society fees, no portion of student services fees are refundable, unless you drop out of U of T entirely. Even then, you have to cancel your registration within six weeks of the beginning of the term to get your fees back.
