Students and community members are voicing concern after Cleveland State University this week told students it will no longer provide a low-cost pass to ride on Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority buses and trains.
Cael Shaw, a law student and president of the Cleveland State University College Democrats, uses the U-Pass, short for universal pass, daily to get around the city. He said the loss of the university subsidized pass means students will now need to pay almost $100 a month for a similar universal pass, which is beyond the financial reach of many students.
"The university marketed when I started to come to CSU, and when a lot of us started to go to CSU, that the city is our campus," Shaw said. "I would go out and say that the county is our campus; we have national parks, we have the Metroparks, all of them are pretty well connected using the RTA and a lot of students rely on that for quality of life, for fun," Shaw said.
Kristin Broka, a Cleveland State University spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday that the state's most recent budget bill introduced new regulations that no longer allow universities to charge "special purpose fees and service charges" uniformly to all students. She said all students registered for one or more credit hours were charged $57.50 per semester for the U-Pass program
"We cannot charge this fee as a student fee and have no other means to bill our students for it at this time. Fall semester bills have been adjusted to remove this fee from the students’ accounts," Broka said. "The U-Pass program was not a profit-making partnership for the University and was never intended as such. One hundred percent of the student U-Pass fee was paid to (the Greater Cleveland) RTA."
She said less than half of the student population at CSU picked up the passes.
CSU President Laura Bloomberg in an email to students Wednesday said the university is exploring how to keep transit affordable for students. The Greater Cleveland RTA in a statement Friday noted as much.
"GCRTA is currently in discussions with CSU to enroll them into another program which will enable them to sell fare media to students who may want the option of purchasing a monthly, weekly, or daily pass," the statement reads. "These passes are available at GCRTA’s regular prices."
Richard Starr, a Cleveland City Council member, wrote a letter to Cleveland State Thursday asking the university to reestablish the U-Pass program. He suggested an opt-in system allowing students to voluntarily participate in the program, or to find a way to otherwise subsidize student bus passes with grants.
"The RTA U-Pass program has been an invaluable resource for students in our community," Starr said in the letter. "It enables them to access quality education while reducing their transportation costs. This initiative has also encouraged public transit, reducing traffic congestion and promoting environmental sustainability within our city. As the fall semester 2025 approaches in just a few weeks, it will be difficult for students to get to class due to the changes within the 'RTA Upass' program. I understand the challenges posed by the recent state regulations and the need for an alternative approach to implement a similar initiative."
Bloomberg apologized for the disruption caused by the removal of the subsidized bus pass program in a Wednesday letter to students. She said the university is exploring how to keep transit affordable for students.
"Students, I recognize that this morning’s message caused concern, especially for those of you who frequently use RTA transit," she wrote. "I am truly sorry for the stress this is causing, including the unexpected financial hardship caused by the abrupt nature of this change. While we cannot control the state regulations that impact the student fee structure, we are working internally on options to lessen the immediate financial impact of this for our students. You will receive further communication regarding these options as soon as we have details available."
Shaw said the U-Pass was the main way he was able to get affordable groceries, traveling outside downtown to go to stores like Dave's or Giant Eagle.
"It was incredibly beneficial to everybody realistically, but mainly for low-income students, international students and disabled students and I do know that at any point in time that I've been on the bus since I started at CSU there were international students, there were just students in general taking the Healthline up and down Euclid," he said.
The Greater Cleveland RTA generated about $1.4 million per year in revenue from the CSU U-Pass program, the RTA said in its statement.
Tri-C offers a similar U-Pass program that provides free transit to all students, according to its website; a spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment sent Friday. Case Western Reserve University also offers transit passes to students and, similar to CSU, charges all students $50 to pay for that program. The private university said its understanding of the state budget law is it only applies to public institutions.
