University of Wisconsin chancellor John Wiley announced Wednesday he would use general university funding to pay for international-student surveillance fees required by the federal government.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System caused a stir during the last academic year after Chancellor Wiley ruled that international students attending UW would pay a fee in order to cover all costs of the system, which monitors international students and faculty who need visas to enter the United States.
UW purchased new software and computers, hired several new staffers to run the system and also paid a fee of $538 to become SEVIS-certified with the federal government. The first-year startup and operational cost is estimated at $330,000.
Dean of Students Luoluo Hong chaired the chancellor’s SEVIS Fee Advisory Committee, comprised of faculty members, members from organizations representing students and staff and international students and staff, and representatives from Associated Students of Madison, in order to find a solution that would best accommodate all members involved.
The committee, considering the international community as vital to UW’s success, recommended that UW absorb the costs of SEVIS as part of the university’s operating costs.
“The committee therefore respectfully recommends to the chancellor that the administrative costs of SEVIS be absorbed as part of the necessary institutional costs of fulfilling our academic mission, and as such, should therefore ideally be covered by the usual sources of funding for administrative costs, namely [general public revenue] and tuition,” the recommendation said.
Wiley accepted the committee’s recommendation Wednesday, calling it the permanent solution for ongoing costs of running the SEVIS program.
The committee agreed that imposing a fee only to international students or the entire student body would be in conflict with principles set up in UW policy that prohibit the use of segregated student fees to cover the normal administrative costs of students’ education. Wiley also explained that UW might lose money because more international students might not apply due to the extra costs of education.
If international students do not comply with SEVIS — for instance, not updating where they are living or falling out of good standing with the university — they could be considered felons by the State Department and be arrested or deported.
SEVIS was in the planning stages for several years by the federal government to track international students’ and staff’s status at their prospective schools.
The implementation and startup of the system was put on the fast track under the first Patriot Act in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The new system also gets rid of paperwork, theoretically making the request for international residents’ information faster. Garrison Courtney, spokesman for U.S. Immigration Custom Enforcement, seconded the notion that SEVIS computerizes a lot of paperwork.
“It’s more streamlined that way,” Courtney said.
UW absorbed some of the introductory cost of SEVIS using a one-time gift fund. Several people made donations for a total of approximately $12,000, and an anonymous donor agreed to give UW up to half the cost of the $330,000 project.
“The donations weren’t nearly enough (to cover all costs of SEVIS),” Wiley said.
The estimated $300,000 per year to keep the SEVIS system in operation will not spike tuition for students, but it might take a nick from other places in the budget. Wiley said student services should be spared but did not specify from where in the general fund the money would come.
Wiley said he hopes the university’s income grows fast enough through gifts or grants that no services or departments would need to be cut in order to accommodate the SEVIS costs.
