The Records and Activities fee: Where does your money go?

Hunter Wallace
News Editor

The $150 Records and Activities Fee that every Hudson Valley student pays upon enrollment counts for more than meets the eye.

This fee — $150 for full-time students and $12.50 per credit hour for part-time students — helps support “student activities, intramural and intercollegiate athletics, cultural affairs activities, student transcripts and graduation,” according to the official Hudson Valley website.

“The Records and Activities fee was created in order to provide students with the resources for extracurricular activities,” said Student Senate Treasurer Max Morand. “When paying for college at Hudson Valley — and any college for that matter — there is the cost of tuition and the fees that go along with it.”

The fee covers several costs. Of the $150, $55 is allocated to Student Activities, $62 is distributed to athletics and the remaining $33 goes toward smaller items, such as graduation and transcript fees.

“This fee benefits the students by providing them with the opportunity of many extracurricular activities,” Morand said. “Without this fee, no student clubs would be possible, athletics would not exist, the bus trips to New York City and Boston would not exist and the $5 movie tickets would not exist, among many others.”

Student Activities spent $4,785 on Regal movie tickets this year alone, in addition to spending $1,020 on Welcome Week, $2,918.99 on Fall Fest and $1,180.23 on Homecoming. The overall cost for student events like these this academic year was $85,998.47. The total cost for student travel events, such as Boston, New York City, Salem, M.A. and Six Flag, New England Fright Fest was $24,474.55, according to the official 2017-2018 Student Activities budget.

The fee helps the college keep tuition low, which directly supports educational purposes, Morand said.

According to Executive Director of Communications and Marketing Dennis Kennedy, the Records and Activities Fee provides funding for the following: no-fee college admissions application, no-fee transcript requests, funding for college athletics (18 men’s and women’s sports), a variety of free or subsidized trips, student activities and events offered through the Student Senate, discounted movie tickets for students through the Student Activities office, support for student clubs and organizations, Cultural Affairs programming [and] events on campus, funding for all graduation expenses and CDTA unlimited ridership for students.

“The total amount charged can fluctuate, based on students adding [or] dropping courses, but right now for the fall it is about $1.163 million” Kennedy said.

The official breakdown of the 2017-2018 Records and Activities Fee is as follows: 44 percent for athletics, 37 percent for activities, 4 percent for graduation activities, 7 percent for Cultural Affairs and events, 5 percent for transcripts and 3 percent for applications, Kennedy said.

For more information on the Records and Activities Fee and what it covers, please contact Student Activities by phone at (518) 629-7348, email at studentactivities@hvcc.edu or in person at Siek Campus Center, Room 210.