NU stands by $20 increase ,
By Brad Davis
Senior Reporter
Although some ticket holders have
complained about the $20 increase in
student season football tickets, the NU
Ticket Office said the added revenue
was necessary.
University of Nebraska Ticket
Office Manager John Anderson said
football season ticket prices were
increased to allow the Athletic
Department to make improvements in
its programs and facilities.
The ticket prices, which Anderson
said have remained unchanged since
1995, increased by $20 for students -
totaling $ 107.50 for six home games.
Tickets were $73 in 1994, before
they were increased to $87.50 in 1995,
where they stayed until this year.
“Obviously, we’re not just doing it
for spite,” Anderson said. “If we had a
pitiful football team it wouldn’t make
sense, but the demand is there, so you
can charge a little bit more.”
Anderson said ticket prices were
raised not arbitrarily but to complete
construction projects including water
proofing Memorial Stadium, fixing the
Bob Devaney Sports Center’s aging
roof, building a new bowling office and
adding two new varsity sports - both
women’s bowling and rifle.
The sky boxes that will be con
structed at Memorial Stadium, along
with the other west stadium projects,
will not be financed by the price
increase, Anderson said.
New restrooms and added conces
sion stands will be improvements paid
for by the near $3.50-per-game price
increase for students.
Some schools around the country
have pricing structures similar to NU’s,
while others incorporate football tickets
into student fees.
Jeff Andress, a ticket office worker
at the University of Florida, said student
season tickets at UF cost $36.
He said about 20,000 tickets out of
about 83,000 seats were allotted for stu
dents, compared to NU’s 8,000 seats out
of about 76,000 seats.
Florida students pay part of their
student fees to the UF athletic depart
ment, which keeps prices low, Andress
said.
Prices for student tickets at some of
the nation’s other top programs vary:
The University of Washington charges
$60; Penn State, $90; Michigan, $84;
Oklahoma, $125.
The University ofTennessee doesn’t
charge students for tickets, but a part of
its $140 student fees goes to its athletic
department.
Anderson said adding football tick
et prices to student fees at UNL would
be much more controversial than the
price increase.
“That would be way more revenue
then if we just charged die students who
go to the games,” he said.
To remain on the cutting edge
among athletic programs nationwide,
Anderson said, ticket prices had to
increase because there are few other
ways to add to the Athletic Department’s
revenue.
“We hope people would recognize
that we are reinvesting in our program
and continuing to strive to stay on top in
every aspect of athletics,” Anderson ,
said.
Jason Adams, a UNL freshman,
said he thought the increase wasn’t “that (
bad.” He said prices increase with
everything, so he expected it with foot
ball, as well. |
“They’re still quite a bit lower than ]
regular prices, so that’s good,” Adams
said. 1
But Clay Ehlers, a UNL junior, said
the increase “bites,” although he still
plans to buy season tickets. C
“We pay to go to school there, and I
we pay all of our student fees and all of I
our tuition,” Ehlers said, “but increasing I
prices again is kind of financially strain- i
ing. i
“But I gotta see the game,” he said. \
And that kind of fan loyalty is what \
Anderson is counting on to make this \
increase successful. \
“We’re not trying to price anyone j
out of the market,” he said. “I’m sure it ,
does affect some people, but I would ,
think for the majority of people, it t
shouldn’t really put a dent into their <
ticket budget.”
Tickets go on sale March 16-20,
during the student ticket lottery, at
which time they can also purchase $6
spring game and national championship
celebration tickets. Anderson said he is
confident demand will exceed the sup
ply, even with the increase.
“We have a great schedule and the
best product in the country,” Anderson
said. “We feel the product is worth the
$107.50 the students are paying.”
CFA will recommend fee increase
By Jessica Fargen
Assignment Reporter
The Committee for Fees Allocation
said Tuesday it will recommend to
ASUN a student fee increase of $33 per
student each semester next year.
The increase would send student
fees up to $240 a semester.
Twenty dollars of that increase is to
pay back bonds taken out fund union
renovations.
The remaining $ 13 was determined
by three factors: CFA’s budget recom
mendations, administrative salaries and
benefits, and the money needed to offset
a decrease in enrollment.
The student fee increase recom
mendation was the culmination of a
month of meetings dealing with the sub
I-—> j—j—i-t-*■-.
mitted budgets from: the Daily
Nebraskan, ASUN, the University
Programming Council and UPC/Lied
Center for Performing Arts, the
University Health Center, Campus
Recreation Center and the union.
CFA has reduced nearly half of
those requested budgets in an effort to
keep student fees low because the $20
would automatically be tacked on.
■ The union requested a 9 percent
increase, which CFA cut back to about
3.5 percent
■UPC Programming asked for an 8
percent increase and got about 2.
■ The Daily Nebraskan asked for 8
percent and received 6 percent.
■ ASUN and UPC/Lied each
received requested amounts, the health
center requested no increase. A standard
3 percent increase was added in for
I
administrative salaries and benefits.
And because 1,060 fewer students
were enrolled in fall of 1997 than in fall
of 1996, a conversion ratio was factored
in to make up for less money generated
from student fees.
Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs
James Griesen said the decreased
enrollment required that either student
fees had to increase or expenditures had
to decrease.
ASUN will vote on the budgets
March 4 and its decision will be for
warded to Chancellor James Moeser,
who can override ASUN. The NU
Board of Regents will conduct the final
budget vote April 4.
3 Diversity In History
Editor’s note: Each day during Black History Month, the Daily Nebraskan
will tell the story of a minority who made an important contribution in
7% America's history.
^ Because, at age 10, he began working as a migrant
farm worker when his family lost its small Arizona
^ farm during the Great Depression;
Because he began organizing Community Service
Organization chapters and Hispanic voter registration
drives and battling racial and economic discrimination
against Chicano residents;
Because he served as the national director of CSO
•bsIb® in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and then founded
^3 the National Farm Workers Association;
Qgi • Because, in 1965, he led the successful five-year
grape strike and boycott that rallied millions behind
the cause of improving wages and conditions for
immigrant farm workers, and almost a decade later,
he called for a worldwide grape boycott honored by
about 17 million American adults;
C* • Because, when the California farm labor board ceased
to enforce labor laws in 1984, he called another grape
boycott and four years later fasted for 36 days to
protest the pesticide poisoning of grape workers and
their children;
Because President Bill Clinton awarded him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian
honor in the United States, posthumously in 1994;
Cesar E. Chavez (1927-1993) is known as a hero
who founded the first successful farm workers’ union
*^5^ in the United States, which improved the working
conditions of poor, immigrant farm workers and
# expanded civil rights for people of all cultures.
-\
Be a Founding Father
'5—
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Convenience store robbed
Two men used a wooden shovel
handle to rob the Gas ’N Shop, 1140
N. 48th St., at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The men, wearing pale blue
hooded pullovers and ski masks,
threatened the clerk with the shovel
handle and took some cash and ciga
rettes, Lincoln Police Capt. A1
Wagner said.
The clerk described the men as 5
foot-9, thin and Hispanic. Police are
looking at a surveillance video for
clues.
Serving America Twice
1-800-USA-NAVY
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