The Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate and Professional Student Council met in the new student services building Tuesday night to hold an open forum in which new student fees were presented.

Members of several university departments brought forward their ideas on how increases in fees will benefit students. Among the mandatory fees all students are required to pay along with tuition, the following have asked for increases: Athletics, Information Technology, Facilities Maintenance, Mass Transit, Student Activity, Student Center, Student Health Center, Student Insurance, and Student Publication.

Each department gave a presentation to members of the USG and GPSC.

Adrian Miller, president of USG, said fees are a reality of going to college.

“We have to invest in ourselves,” he said.

Athletic Director Mario Moccia began the presentations by asking for a $4 per student increase to the athletic fee.

Moccia said most of the cost savings has come from personnel cuts. Over the last four years, 13 positions within the athletic department have been cut, accumulating a little more than $513,000 in savings he said.

“The travel, airfare, gas, hotel and bus costs for all of our 18 sports and 400 student athletes increased about 20 percent in fiscal year 2013,” he said. “We project a pretty similar increase in 2014.”

David Crain, assistant provost and chief information officer, spoke in favor of the information technology fee. He said the main goal was to become a leader in educational technology and the university is far from that in comparison to other high-end universities.

Crain said a great deal of the accomplishments the university has been able to make in the last two years, such as an increase in internet bandwidth, has come from the information technology fee. He asked for a $3.60 increase to the fee to continue the university’s technological upgrades.

Phil Gatton, director of plant and service operations, asked for a $6 increase to the facilities maintenance fee for general upkeep.

“The facility maintenance fee was created because the state didn’t have enough money to maintain the facilities,” Gatton said. “Everyone in the state had the same issue.”

Lori Stettler, assistant vice chancellor for auxiliary services, asked for a $2.50 increase to the mass transit fee to cover the cost of the contracted services. She said there has not been an increase to the fee since fiscal year 2011.

Stettler also asked for an $8 increase to the Student Center fee to help pay the salaries of new business employees.

Jeff McGoy, assistant dean of students, asked for a $1.08 increase to the student activity fee. McGoy said the money from the increase would provide a new van and more student workers for the night-safety transit program. This program was created to give students a safe means of travel around campus and Carbondale at night.

Ted Grace, director of the Student Health Center, and Jim Hunsaker, assistant director, asked for increases of $4 for the Student Health Center fee and $32 for the student insurance fee.

Kayli Plotner, Editor-in-chief of the DAILY EGYPTIAN, and William Freivogel, director of the School of Journalism, presented the new student publication fee. This fee would be $9 per student.

This fee would go towards funding production of the student-based newspaper as it has gone several decades operating on advertising revenue alone, Plotner said.

“We are falling under the same circumstances that newspapers all over the country are facing, advertising is not enough,” Plotner said.

Jon Schaffer, director of University Housing, said he wanted to get rid of the discrepancy between east campus and Thompson Point. He said they would do this by increasing the rates of east campus housing by 5 percent, making it equal to west campus.

Overall, the mandatory fee increases came to $70.18 per semester.