Dear Editor:

A “student representation fee” of $1 per semester is being collected at Skyline College and at Cañada College and at College of San Mateo. The San Mateo Community College District has reported that on June 30, 2014 its “Representation Fee Trust Fund” contained more than $138,000.* That sum represents political representation services that students have paid for but have not received. In other words, students are being cheated.

Students are paying for representation services that are not being provided to them because the officers of student body associations are failing to use student representation fees for the statutorily prescribed purpose. That failure could be corrected, in part, by immediately donating $100,000 to the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. Instruction for donating moneys to the SSCCC can be found on the SSCCC’s website at studentsenateccc.org. Please select the “Donate” tab on that webpage.

Student body presidents, please provide your constituents with the representation services that they have paid for and should be receiving.

Sincerely, Scott G. Beach
Alumnus of Skyline College and
principal draftsman of the student representation fee law;
Education Code Section 76060.5, added by Chapter 1238 of
the Statutes of 1987 (Assembly Bill No. 2576; Hayden)