Fees for services students may or may not use are built into tuition at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Campus parking, the Children’s Center, Textbook Rental, and other facilities and services available at UW-Platteville use segregated fees to help fund their operations.
As stated on the UW System website, “Segregated university fees are charges, in addition to instructional fees, assessed to all students for student services, activities, programs and facilities that support the mission of University of Wisconsin System institutions.”
According to UW-Platteville’s website’s tuition and fee schedule, a full-time undergraduate student is charged $536.30 in segregated fees per semester. These fees are classified as allocable and non-allocable.
Student organizations and university departments, as permitted under the UW System Financial and Administrative Policy G15 on Student Services funding, are qualified to receive allocable segregated fees, according to the University of Wisconsin System website.  UW-Platteville’s student group responsible for the allocation process is the Segregated University Fee Allocation Committee.
Students elected to SUFAC make recommendations as to where the allocable fees should go; the chancellor reviews them and they are subject to final approval by the Board of Regents.
“The commission develops trends and uses those trends to allocate funds in a viewpoint-neutral fashion,” Sara Voigts, associate budget planner, said.
“The allocable fees fund approximately 95 officially recognized student organizations for the 2016 fiscal year,” Schauff said.
Non-allocable fees help fund long-term commitments. The Markee Pioneer Student Center, textbook rental, health care, athletics, intramural sports, parking, student activities, municipal services, Children’s Center, stadium, Ullsvik Center, Pioneer Activity Center and ID systems are operations supported by non-allocable funds.
Voigts said that the non-allocable fees are established by the managers of the operations in conjunction with the auxiliary budget analyst. Each non-allocable fee is collected specifically for that operation and SUFAC reviews the non-allocable budgets. A vote will then take place to decide how much will be allocated to each organization. The Chancellor has the final approval on non-allocable fees.

Parking
Non-allocable fees used for parking go into the overall revenue piece of parking.  Parking is required by state statute to be self-funded. Chief of University Police Scott Marquardt said that parking has to generate enough revenue to pay for parking expenses. Examples of revenue pieces that go into parking are parking permits, fines and citations, meter income and segregated fees.
Marquardt said that even students who don’t own a vehicle but walk across a snow-cleared lot to get to a friend’s car are getting value out of the $20 charged for parking.
“Paying segregated fees to parking is something that many could benefit from,” Marquardt said. “Even people who don’t have permits may have used the parking lots at some point during an academic year. It can be just as simple as the well-lit parking lot a student walks through at night.”
The fees, which are part of revenue for parking, help pay for everything related to parking, such as permit tags, maintenance, paint strips and debt services.

Children’s Center
The Children’s Center, the only nationally accredited center in Platteville, receives non-allocable segregated fees to help with operation. Children’s Center Director Julie Soja said that it is a relationship that benefits the children attending the Center and university students. The center provides School of Education students’ access to the Children’s Center for Early Childhood Student Teaching, fulfillment of tutoring requirements and observation opportunities. The center also works with classes in the Health and Human Performance Department. University students develop activities for the children at the center. The Children’s Center employs 28 to 30 students each semester.
“It gives the students the opportunity to work with children in a real-life situation and the children love to participate in fun activities in a different environment,” Soja said. “A win-win.”
Segregated fees are used for the operation of the Children’s Center and to supplement the university student rate parents are charged. A university student taking six credits or more pays $2.65 per hour or $18.40 per day. A faculty, staff, or community member pays $5.35 per hour or $36.75 per day.
“Giving student parents access to childcare essentially gives them access to their education,” Soja said.
“I believe the Children’s Center, as well as other areas on campus, is part of a university wide comprehensive service plan,” Soja said, “I am sure there are many student parents who are paying segregated fees for the PAC, counseling services or other areas that charge segregated fees, that do not use those services. Just as many students who may use counseling services do not use the Children’s Center.”

Textbook Rental
Segregated Fees Part B, as listed in the Pioneer Administrative Software System, covers the textbook center operation and rental process. The textbook center is completely funded with non-allocable segregated fees and a small portion comes from the selling of used books. Textbook rental fees are based on the number of credits students are taking.  For a student taking 12 or more credits in any major, the fees total $82.50 per semester.
“Across all three colleges, we will find inexpensive books and expensive books. It just depends on the subject being taught and what books the professors choose,” Mary Larson, Textbook Center manager, said. “I will shop around and work with publishers to find the best deals and prices for the textbooks.”
Every year each department is given a set budget for the amount they can use for textbooks. Once the department reaches that budget they cannot purchase any more books for the year.
“The biggest pro to a textbook rental system is that it costs a lot less for the student,” Amanda Trewin, biology department professor, said. “Students can easily obtain all of their books by the first class since there isn’t a need to search for the cheapest source.”
Nancy Turner, history professor, said that a benefit for student textbook rental is that students are able to pick up all of their textbooks for class.  If they had to pay for them then some students may not buy all of them. Also, sometimes an instructor is able to order the best textbook, even if it is expensive, because they know that the students won’t have to pay for it.
If a textbook selected by the instructor does or does not meet the needs of the class, the instructors generally have to use the book for at least three years. There is less flexibility in the rental system when the instructor wants to change a book, Trewin said.
“Instructors are often required by their departments to limit the number of textbooks they can order for a class.  Making textbook purchases depending on a department’s textbook budget as a whole means the instructors may have to compete with each other,” Turner said.