UNLV will pay student programs $500,000

Jennifer Knight

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2001 | 11:02 a.m.

A 15-year-old mistake in the way UNLV administrators funded student government will cost the school $500,000, school administrators said Tuesday.

Terms of the agreement, which involved administrators and student leaders, will be paid out over two years.

The money will be added to the current student government budget, which is about $750,000 a year.

The extra money will help expand existing programs, such as student scholarships and entertainment, and double student government's discretionary account, student leaders said.

The agreement came after students challenged the formula UNLV administrators had used to fund student government.

The student council constitution says it should receive a 5 percent share of full-time student tuition, which is currently $76.50 per credit hour.

For the past 15 years, student government has received a flat $2.40 per credit hour.

This year the student council will receive about $3.83 for each credit hour in which full-time students enroll.

Ironically, when student government was first paid the $2.40 flat fee, it amounted to a larger percentage than what was agreed upon -- sometimes as much as a 10 percent cut of tuition. But as tuition prices rose over the years, the flat fee amounted to a smaller portion of the overall pie.

Student government leaders spent 96 hours searching through old Board of Regents' minutes and school newspapers to confirm the error, said Paul Moradkhan, student president.

"We are very pleased with the end result," Moradkhan said. "We were owed more, but student government felt that if they asked for all the money up front, it would be detrimental to the college."

Moradkhan would not say exactly how much student leaders estimated the school owed student government.

But, given recent cuts in state funding of higher education, students and administrators agreed to the $500,000 payout.