Student fees to increase
Amount remains comparable in Big 12
By Brad Davis
Senior Reporter
Although UNL’s student fees are
scheduled to increase nearly 16 per
cent next year, students will still
probably pay less money than almost
half their peers at other universities.
Student fees at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln are set to increase
next year from $494 to $620 per year.
UNL is currently the third-lowest
fee-charging university among other
public universities in die Big 12 (not
including Baylor University, which is
a private institution).
Next year, UNL would become
the fifth-highest fee-charger among
those 11 universities, but only if
those institutions keep fees at their
current levels. And that isn’t likely.
While last year’s fees can provide
an indication of where UNL might
stand among its peers next year, until
all schools set their fees, it is impos
sible to compare.
Vice Chancellor for Student
Affairs James Griesen said UNL has
historically charged relatively low
student fees.
In the 1995-1996 academic year,
Griesen said the university had the
lowest student fees in the Big 8.
I
Major building renovations and
additions, Griesen said, have caused
the greatest increases in student fees.
Twenty dollars of UNL’s increase
next year is for the Nebraska Union
renovation and was decided by a stu
dent referendum vote and subse
quent approval by the NU Board of
Regents in 1995.
Without this $20 increase, the
University Program and Facilities
Fees for the 1998-1999 academic
year are set to increase by 6.28 per
cent, Griesen said.
Those fees, called UPFF, are set
by the student government’s
Committee for Fees Allocation and
are then approved by Griesen and
UNL Chancellor James Moeser.
Griesen said the fee increase
accounted for about 1,100 fewer fee
paying students enrolled this fall,
and projections for future enrollment
are on the decline.
With a lower base of students
paying the fees for the same amount
of facilities and programs, Griesen
said the fees must increase.
The decrease in enrollment could
be attributed to UNL’s stricter admis
sions standards adopted last fall,
along with a strong economy that
lures some would-be students into
the job market, Griesen said.
66
I think we give
students a very good
return on their
investment”
James Griesen
vice chancellor for Student Affairs
Another part of the total fee
increase, unrelated to the UPFF
increase, is related to UNL’s technol
ogy fee, which was planned to
increase incrementally over a period
of three years.
The university assessed a $2 per
credit hour fee this year, and will
charge $4 per credit hour next year,
ultimately charging the $5 per credit
hour maximum in 1999-2000.
Though some students may com
plain, Griesen said the “taxes” they
must pay to support university facili
ties and programming are well-spent.
“I think we give students a very
good return on their investment,”
Griesen said.
“I think they’re getting a good
buy.”
-1
U.N. weapons team resumes
‘surprise’ Iraqi inspections
remains head of the group
■ Palace inspections
will not begin again until
certain rules have been
established between Iraq
and the United States.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — A
50-member team of U.N. weapons
inspectors returned to Iraq on
Thursday, led by an American
whose presence helped touch off
the Gulf crisis — a standoff they
hope to verify is over.
Scott Ritter and his team
arrived from Bahrain at the
Habaniya military airport outside
Baghdad and were driven to the
U.N. headquarters in a van and a
bus.
Ritter’s team will “carry out
inspections, including surprise
inspections, to some of the sensi
tive sites,” the official Iraqi News
Agency said.
Sensitive sites are ministries
and security facilities, which can
be inspected only under special
procedures in effect since June
1996.
Ritter’s team had been prevent
ed from entering some suspected
weapons sites in January after Iraq
r~
alleged he was an American spy
and his team had a disproportion
ately high number of Americans.
Ritter left Iraq on Jan. 16, and
chief inspector Richard Butler
ordered him back in, said Allen
Dacey, the inspectors’ spokesman
in Baghdad.
In an unusual move, the gov
ernment told television crews and
photographers they cannot go into
the U.N. headquarters to cover
Ritter’s arrival. One ministry offi
cial said Ritter “is not an impor
tant event.”
His return follows the U.N.
Iraq accord of Feb. 23 under which
Iraq agreed to give inspectors full
access to eight presidential
palaces Baghdad previously
declared off limits.
The accord was worked out by
U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who
appointed a retired Indian diplo
mat on Thursday as his special
representative to Iraq. Prakash
Shah, 58, a former Indian ambas
sador to the United Nations, is part
of an effort by Annan to expand
contacts with the Iraqi leadership.
Palace inspections are not
expected to start until the United
Nations and the Iraqis agree on
new rules for them. Those rules,
the subject of intense discussions
Thursday between U.N. and Iraqi
officials in New York, have not yet
been finalized. But diplomatic
sources said a draft was delivered
to Iraqi officials on Wednesday.
Ritter’s team is only one of
several that are deployed in Iraq.
The other groups have worked
daily, including through the crisis
over the presidential sites.
INA said eight teams carried
out inspections Thursday of seven
sites already under surveillance. It
is not known when Ritter and his
team will start their work.
The 15-member U.N. Security
Council has warned Iraq of
“severest consequences” if it
reneges on the Feb. 23 accord.
U.S. officials say the resolu
tion gives the United States a
green light to attack Iraq in such a
case. But council members
Russia, France and China insist
the resolution does not authorize
automatic military action.
The weapons inspectors must
certify whether Iraq has eliminat
ed all its weapons of mass destruc
tion before U.N. sanction?,
imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion
of neighboring Kuwait, can be lift
ed.
-
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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
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Repair bill moves on
to next stage of debate
■ The proposed measure
would grant UNL money
to pay off 11 renovation
projects and set up a fund
for future repairs.
i
By Todd Anderson
Assignment Reporter
Bancroft Hall and other dilapi
dated state college buildings are
one step closer to getting a facelift
after the Legislature voted unani
mously to advance LB1100 to the
second round of debate Thursday.
umana sen. uan Lyncn, me
sponsor of the bill, said now is the
time to pay for long-overdue build
ing repairs and building mainte
nance.
“This is the first time in almost
25 years that we’ve taken this
responsibility seriously^” Lynch
said. “This Legislature finally will
be known as the one that did some
thing about it.”
The bill would give the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
$5.5 million dollars each year for
the next 10 years to pay off the low
interest bonds used to finance 11
renovation projects. The university
would match the amount given by
the Legislature.
The bill also would create a
fund to provide for future emer
gency repairs of all buildings oper
ated by the state, NU and other state
i 3
colleges.
In addition, state agencies
would be required to set aside 2 per
cent of their budgets for building
maintenance.
Sen. Deb Suttle of Omaha said
the state of several buildings is
“deplorable.” She said the bill
would make sure “we won’t find
ourselves in this kind of bind
again.”
A 1 _ . J_1*1_ J _1_
mau uuuug uuui ucudtc
Thursday, senators advanced
LB 1228, the Quality Education
Accountability Act. The five-part
proposal would establish statewide
education standards and provide for
testing.
LB989, introduced by Sen.
George Coordsen of Hebron, would
limit increases in school spending
by placing a 2.5 percent cap on
school district budgets. The bill was
also advanced to select file.
Finally, senators voted on
LB 1138, which would give money
to the Nebraska State College
Board of Trustees to pay for build
ing renovation and maintenance at
Peru State College.
After adding a committee
amendment that would call for a
study by the Post-secondary
Coordinating Commission to deter
mine the best plan for Peru State
College, the Legislature advanced
the bill to second-round debate.
Lunar water increases
likelihood of space base
Spacecraft finds deposits of ice
WASHINGTON (AP) — NASA
officials said Thursday they
believed there was enough water
frozen in the moon’s soil to support
a lunar base, or even to one day sup
port a human colony.
“For the first time, we may be
able to go to another space body and
fuel up” by converting the ice to liq
uid water that could then be used to
make rocket propellant or breathing
oxygen, said Alan Binder, lead sci
entist for the Lunar Prospector
spacecraft.
The water is in the form of small,
scattered pockets of ice that have
been found beneath the lunar sur
face by a robot survey spacecraft
that has spent the last month map
ping the moon.
i ue water, apparently commea
to the polar regions, is scattered in
small deposits across thousands of
square miles of the lunar poles,
according to the data from the Lunar
Prospector.
William Feldman, an Energy
Department researcher participating
in the project, estimated there could
be 11 million to 330 million tons of
ice dispersed across about 18,000
square miles of the north pole and
about 7,200 square miles of the
south pole.
“Our data are consistent with the
presence of water ice in very low
concentrations across a significant
number of craters,” Feldman said.
Finding water on the moon could
be a big boost for tentative plans to
establish a permanent lunar base.
If water could be mined on the
moon, it would ease the need of
sending a supply from Earth. Water
weighs eight pounds a gallon. It
could take thousands of gallons to
maintain a permanent moon com
plex.
The presence of water could also
«
Our data are
consistent with the
presence of water...
across a significant
number of craters.” 1
William Feldmen
Energy Department researcher
enable astronauts to make their own
breathing oxygen and to use the
moon as sort of a space-based filling
station. Water can be split into its
chemical components, hydrogen
and oxygen. Oxygen could be used
for breathing, and the combination
of hydrogen and oxygen can be used
as a rocket fuel.
Lunar Prospector was launched
in January and put into a 60-mile
high orbit of the moon. The 4-foot
long, 650-pound spacecraft is
NASA's first return to the moon
since the last manned lunar landing
mission, Apollo 17 in December
1972.
The robot craft carries instru
ments that can detect alpha parti
cles, gamma rays and neutrons,
along with a radar experiment. Data
from the instruments, radioed to
Earth, enable scientists to analyze
the composition of the lunar surface
and to pinpoint gravity and magnet
ic features.
The $65 million spacecraft is
expected to spend the rest of the
year mapping the moon’s surface.
When it runs out of fuel, the craft
will crash into the moon, so it would
not become an orbiting hazard to
future lunar missions.