Cleveland State University announced Wednesday it's restoring a low-cost bus program for students it had previously cut.
The university said all full-time students will be able to buy a U-Pass allowing unlimited bus and train rides on the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, and it will cost students the same amount as what they were charged before, $57.50 per semester. The main difference is students will need to opt-in to be charged and use the services, instead of all students seeing it on their bill.
"You will see, regardless of any of the other details going forward, that over half of you, over half our students who do not access a U-Pass sticker will see a reduction in their bills starting this fall," President Laura Bloomberg said in a Zoom call explaining the changes to students Wednesday.
The university had announced in late July it would no longer be able to charge all students unilaterally for the U-Pass program, due to language in the biennial budget bill passed by the state earlier this summer disallowing universal fees. However, a spokesperson for Ohio Governor Mike DeWine's office has said the university's interpretation of the law was "ridiculous."
CSU President Laura Bloomberg did not mention state law when explaining the changes to students Wednesday.
"So what we have known is that we have a large number of students paying a fee each semester for a service by an outside provider that they do not access," she said. "That is what started this conversation. I want to tell you that at the core of our guiding principles as we've begun to explore this is that we wanted to do right by all of our students, certainly our students who use transit, but also our students who do not use transit and are not able for a number of reasons to think of transit as a viable option for them."
Bloomberg noted only about 40% of students ever picked up the sticker for their IDs that allowed them to use the U-Pass, despite the fee previously being charged to all students.
Provost Nigamanth Sridhar said during the Zoom call that the program previously was "revenue-neutral" for the university. CSU will now be covering any cost overruns since fewer students will be paying the fee.
"But it is our commitment, the university's commitment that we're going to use philanthropic funds to the best extent possible to make this program viable for our students so that it doesn't come back on to the students' back in any way," he explained.
The university has made significant budget cuts over the last several years, including layoffs and cutting sports and academic programs.
An individual adult pass from the Greater Cleveland RTA normally costs $95 a month.
