We have received surveys 365 and blog comments from throughout campus and here are the results:
Overall, 59% of students responded “Yes” and 41% of students responded “No”
Of employees, 75% responded “Yes” and 25% responded “No”
The numbers are heavily skewed depending on the student populations that voted. For example:
Of the surveys received on the main campus (including all day and evening students) 67% responded “Yes”33%” and “responded “No.”
Of the surveys submitted from Salt Lake City, the Roy campus or the BDO campus, the numbers were exactly–and coincidentally–opposite. Only 33% said “Yes,” while 67% said “No.” This reflects the fact that many of these students attend for shorter times (such as those in CNA), and they are working at jobs that require them to drive. Fewer of these students saw a benefit.
It was interesting that many of the students who said “Yes” said it enthusiastically, some almost begged. This is because many students are struggling to make ends meet. Transportation costs are a big deal, and students need all the help they can get to finish school.
That said, is it fair to charge everyone for a benefit not everyone will use? How do we make it fair? In order to pay for the program, we HAVE to charge most students. If we start taking certain student groups out of the mandatory category, we have to charge more per pass. I wish there was an easy answer but if there was, we would have already made a decision.
So…
These are still unresolved questions, but rest assured we are looking for a viable solution that accounts for the many different student situations. Stay tuned for the latest…and submit your comments!
November 26th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Unite the entire student body by voting on the edpass decision at one time, regardless of what campus a student attends. The result will represent the will of the majority of the entire student body.
OR
Allow some campuses to be exempt from the charge and have no trasportation passes available. Only the ogden campus would have the edpass.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:59 am
Lori,
I realized as I read your comments that the word “voted” in my description of the survey is really a misnomer. It wasn’t actually an official binding vote, but rather was an informal survey intended to provide a sense for how students felt about the program. The purpose was to provide administration with student feedback so a decision can be made.
With hundreds of surveys returned from all campuses, it could never represent the view of every single student, but it does give us a pretty good idea of how groups of students are looking at it.
Unfortunately, excluding some campuses across the board will not work. If we take out all of the students from those campuses there is not enough participation to pay for the program. Alternatively, if we take out only some students then we have to address issues of fairness. Every group that is either included or excluded will have students who do not like the decision.
We are still considering all of our options to see if there is a hybrid that would be viable, but I wanted to post some of the logistics involved.