The University of Maryland SGA passed a bill Wednesday to host a campuswide referendum this spring to assess student support for a mandatory University Health Center fee starting in the 2027 fiscal year.
The nonbinding question will appear on the upcoming Student Government Association election ballot in April. The question will help determine whether the student body favors an annual health center fee, which would be estimated at $140 to 180 per year for full-time students and $70 to 90 per year for part-time students, according to the bill.
The SGA bill comes weeks after this university’s presidential cabinet decided not to implement a similar fee for the 2026-27 academic year, The Diamondback previously reported.
“Because this is a student fee, it effectively empowers us — the health center — to empower the students to make decisions about their health care, access to health care and the services that they want included and funded,” health center director Spyridon Marinopoulos told The Diamondback on Wednesday.
The fee would improve access to care and make care more equitable for students, Marinopoulos said.
Since the 2022-23 academic year, health center fees have been incorporated in student tuition, according to this university’s graduate school website. The proposed mandatory fee would replace individual service charges and student co-pays for certain health center services, according to the bill.
[UMD will not implement proposed health center fee for 2026 academic year]
Under the fee, the health center would cover associated out-of-pocket costs without a student needing insurance and provide access to services such as:
- Acute care visits
- Behavioral health evaluation and treatment
- Gynecology, reproductive, genital and sexual health appointments
- In-house labs
- In-house X-Rays
- Primary care medical appointments
- Primary care musculoskeletal medicine visits
- Substance use intervention and treatment
- Travel clinic consultations
In response to SGA’s bill, this university wrote in a statement to The Diamondback that SGA is allowed to “gauge student opinions on any topic relevant to [this] university.”
[UMD graduate students criticize proposed health center fee]
SGA president Reese Artero told The Diamondback the fee would make students more proactive about going to the health center, since many common student services are covered by the fee.
“It really would also give us an essential student representation in those … conversations and discussions,” Artero said. “[The fee] makes it a lot easier for us to hold the leverage.”
Many university graduate students previously criticized a mandatory health center, highlighting their wages would not cover the fee and their limited use of the health center would not rationalize the cost, The Diamondback previously reported.
Shuli Frenkel, SGA’s student affairs co-director, noted the fee might feel unnecessary for some students who pay less for other accepted insurance options.
“If you don’t feel you would ever utilize any of those resources, then you might not think that this is something that’s important for you to be funding,” the junior criminology and criminal justice major said.
If the fee is implemented, it would also give students representation in health center budget deliberations and service offerings, the bill stated.
Students are not involved in this process because their tuition money does not go directly to the health center, Frenkel said.
Gov. Wes Moore’s proposed 2026 fiscal year budget includes $111 million cuts to the University System of Maryland as the state navigates a $3 billion deficit.
The fee would help the health center maintain its services and allow it to have a reserve to hire more staff members despite the proposed budget cuts, Marinopoulos said.
Moving forward, SGA plans to work with the other organizations to ensure students are informed of their voting options before the referendum vote, Artero said.
Marinopoulos also hoped to educate students about the proposed fee moving forward.
“We want to reach out to our students, educate them about what the fee does for them,” Marinopoulos said. “It’s a student-driven decision. If the students don’t support it, it wouldn’t pass.”
