Student services markup

Bud Whitley

Mandated student fees have been around for more than a century, an article from thefire.org gives the history of mandatory fees as being enacted by students to support certain student facilities and organizations. All around the country, college students as a whole would agree to pay fees for things like athletic fields and support services; however, these students didn’t agree to pay the item markup prevalent in the services they pay to keep up.

Any sort of item a student buys on campus has a price considerably greater than market price. The convince stores that are open to students until very late (usually 1 or 2 AM) sell any sort of thing one may need to pull that allnighter or pick up a snack between classes sells a loaf of bread, costing about $1 - $2 at the grocery store, for $4; a 100% markup at best! The West Campus Market holds a monopoly on the west campus of Georgia Tech as the only guaranteed safe place where students can get food after the dining hall closes at 9 PM. As such, students on west campus have only one choice of where to get there late night food and there for have to pay the marked up price for food. According to the University System of Georgia, as of 2006 Georgia Tech had some of the highest mandatory fees of any school in the system, so why should students pay massive mark-up prices to uses a service they already contribute too?