Budget cuts and a fee hike are issues that have members of the University of Massachusetts community troubled, following the recent approval for the increases by the Board of Trustees.

The board met in Boston Monday for an emergency meeting that would address 25.5 million dollar gaping wound in the budget of the school system in its entirety. All of the University of Massachusetts campuses as a whole will eliminate a total of 270.

For the Amherst campus, they approved a $495 mandatory fee increase effective as of Spring 2002 with a breakdown of a $230 increase in curriculum fees and a $265 service fee increase. The fee will only apply to undergraduates at the University. In addition, they recommended eliminating approximately 60 employees and eliminating 100 positions on campus. Even with this added revenue the campus will still remain nearly 15 million dollars short of its typical revenue.

The University also plans upon implementing long-term plans, which include raising charges for both room and board.

However it is still unknown as to how this will fully affect the students at UMass in terms of both funding of student organizations and in dealing with the availability of classes.

“We really don’t know how the cuts are going to affect student affairs we will have a better idea when we get a chance to sit down and evaluate the cuts,” Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Javier Cevallos explained. “We are all struggling with this the best that we can, in the end we will get through this.”

Cevallos remained optimistic about the situation describing it as both a challenge and an opportunity for the University to sit down and re-evaluate spending.

Interim Chancellor Marcellette Williams explained in a press release that the fee increase was a necessity because of the difficult financial times for the campus.

“We cannot continue business as usual in these unusual times,” she explained. “While the cuts will be difficult the campus is committed to coming through these times positioned to continue to offer our student access to excellence.”

She went on to say that while the fee helped to improve the situation that it would not be the only solution necessary.

“Even after the fee increase, the campus is still significantly out of balance,” she said. “We have to consider restructuring, reallocations and substantial cuts to make up this balance.”

Others also expressed doubt due to the cuts and pondered what that would mean to the future of academics.

Benjamin Balthaser, a member of the Graduate Employee Organization, a union that supports teaching assistants on campus stressed how this could possibly affect both professors and teaching assistants.

“We (TA’s) are temporarily protected from losing our jobs to budget cuts because of our contract,” he explained stressing that this may not always be the case. “We fear a loss in TA’s and a loss in full time faculty. There is a move towards a temporary status in academic labor.”

He went on to explain that the cuts in personnel would simply be bad for the students preventing them from being able to get into classes and forcing them to deal with even larger class sizes.

He did express hope that with impending cuts that the University would take a closer look at the budget situation and try to figure out what they could effectively cut.

“This is bad, but we are hoping that it will force the University reevaluate its priorities,” Balthaser said. “Move away from distance learning and high athletics costs.”

Aaron Saunders, the Speaker of the Student Government Association and attendee at the Trustee meeting described the situation as ten times worse than the worst-case scenario. While he expressed his understanding for the increase in fees he explained that the $495 price tag was simply too much for some students to handle.

“We recognize that there is a need for some sort of increase, but $495 is too much for a student to come up with in five weeks during a recession,” he explained. “Some students are going to be forced not to buy books in order to pay the fee.”

He also expressed some concern that because of the increased amount some students may not be able to come back to school at all because financial aid may not have the resources to help them.

“Financial Aid is going to be hit by those students that just cannot afford the $495,” he said going on to say that it may be the students without a full financial aid package that may suffer the most. “The middle class students are going to be the ones who get the bill in the mail from financial aid that says that there is no money left.”