More and more of the cost of higher education in Kansas is being transferred to individual students and their families.

From time to time, taxpayers are reminded that attaching fees to various services is just a back-door way of raising taxes. The same theory seems to apply to efforts to add special surcharges onto tuition for Kansas University students enrolled in certain classes or degree programs.

Even with unprecedented increases in base tuition at KU, the university apparently is unable to meet the basic needs of certain university departments. Students in the KU school of architecture and urban design and those in the school of engineering already pay an extra $15 per credit hour to finance equipment and pay other costs.

Now, the school of fine arts is proposing a fee of $12 per credit hour for students taking music and dance classes. The fee will generate an estimated $150,000 a year to upgrade class facilities and pay for other needs. The wish list includes renovation of the choral room and the Swarthout Recital Hall stage and fresh paint and improved lighting for 78 practice rooms in Murphy Hall.

The fee also would provide financial assistance for students participating in off-campus performances and create several new staff positions. Those would include instructors in guitar, harp and jazz piano, staff members for the choral, orchestral and dance divisions and computer and instrument technicians.

The proposed uses of the fee seem reasonable to the lay person. The question then becomes, why aren’t at least some of these needs being met in the university’s existing budget? Is there no budget for painting and lighting practice rooms? The choral director reports holes in the floors and walls of a rehearsal room whose windows don’t close properly. Shouldn’t such routine building maintenance be accomplished without charging students a special fee?

Overall tuition at KU has increased by $20 per credit hour each of the last two years. KU administrators have said they are determined not to spend that money to fill funding holes left by recent reductions in state funding. But is it fair to charge students in certain programs an additional fee to fix actual holes in rehearsal facilities?

Members of the Department of Music and Dance Student Advisory Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposed fee, showing that many students are willing to pay for items they see as directly enhancing their educational experience. But students must be starting to wonder where this trend will end.

On top of tuition increases that will double base tuition over five years, students in certain programs also are being asked to pony up additional money to pay staff and maintain facilities. How many other departments and schools across the university will seek to justify special tuition surcharges to pay for special needs for their students?

The needs in the music and dance department seem real and should be addressed, but KU officials — and Kansas state legislators — need to take a serious look at the ever-increasing financial burden they are placing on individual students.