Florence, towards a 9% increase in university fees against expensive energy
The University of Florence is hunting for resources for the next budget. Burdened with dear energy and sensation, new funds are needed. And the road at the moment leads to the wallets of students and families: the solution could in fact be an increase in fees for those enrolled at the university. The maneuver has not yet been decided, it is on the table for discussion, but it goes beyond the simple hypothesis. The idea has been indicated in the 2023-24 budget that will be voted on this week. The strategy would be to add to the almost 55 million euros that arrived this year thanks to the payments of members, another 5 million or so. An extra 9%. However, it remains to be understood how this percentage will be distributed: 9% more for all registered students (who would therefore go to pay the increase in proportion to their income) or different quotas based on their income. In any case, the Isee range from 0 to 24 thousand euros should not change. While it is not excluded that all the others face the increase. The next few days before Christmas will be decisive. Tomorrow the plan will be presented to the Academic Senate, then to the Board of Governors on Friday. On this occasion it will be in the approved case.
On the one hand, the university says its hands are tied: bills have skyrocketed and the money must be found somewhere. “The university is the only public entity that has not received support for expensive energy. We don’t even have the funds that allow us to invest, for example, in installing photovoltaic systems – explains the rector Alessandra Petrucci, who therefore hopes for an outstretched hand from part of the Government – We have formed a technical table to study how to reduce energy costs and waste, for example by turning off the lights in the evening and leaving only the safety ones, but it is not enough”.
A special Budget and Sustainability Commission will also start working from January, designed above all to discuss this issue and the increase in contributions. For families and students, however, the new tax, which in the case would be approved to announce with the May budget and would start from the next school year, would become yet another expense to manage. “A choice that we absolutely do not share, we are strongly against it – explains Mirko Brogi, Csx Florence student representative -. In the budget it is said that the income of families has decreased and therefore also the income from taxes. We consider it a contradiction: the “does the university understand that there is an economic crisis and so does it increase contributions? It doesn’t seem like the first path to take to find new resources. Students already have to bear – he adds – the growth in the cost of rents that has taken place this year, the discovery. The obligatory tax for transport has also been included (from 48 to 75 euros according to the Isee). Several hundred euros more every year”.
From the University they let it be known that it is still “premature to talk about raising taxes before the general framework of possible support to universities for energy costs is clarified at national level”. In short, if help comes from the government, the situation could change. However, the theme will certainly be held in the corridors of the faculties in the coming months. “We risk facing a situation in which only those who can afford it study – continues the representative of Csx – in which the right to study that Tuscany had created in a virtuous way in recent years is destroyed”.
Jasmin Raffaelli, elected to the academic senate with Students of the left, explains that “on Wednesday we will oppose the increase, we think that the contribution should not come from the students but from the Government. We are already grappling with a heavy cost of living which affects the right to study. Now – he says – we will inform and mobilize the students, from the spaces of Novoli to those of Sesto Fiorentino. In university environments, especially among those who have already lived there for some years, there is a feeling of distrust “.
Today there are 73 Isee income brackets for the right to university study on the basis of which every student pays tuition fees. Up to 24,000 euros, registered students only pay 156 euros (ie only the stamp duty and the regional tax). Above 24,000, on the other hand, they pay from a minimum of 536 euros a year, up to 2,652 for those over 125,000 euros of Isee. Then there are scholarships as a form of support.