University of Maryland students will have the opportunity to vote on two ballot questions during this week’s SGA elections.
Here’s a look at the two campuswide referendums.
Mandatory health center fee
The first question will ask students whether they support the creation of a new mandatory health center fee, according to Sarang Han, president of this university’s Student Health Advisory Committee.
The fee would cost about $140 to $180 each year for full–time students and $70 to $90 for part-time students, according to the ballot question.
This fee would cover services including acute and primary care visits and behavioral health treatment, according to a bill the Student Government Association passed in February that added the referendum to this year’s ballot.
[UMD will not implement proposed health center fee for 2026 academic year]
The fee would also create a $500,000 reserve fund to cover increased hirings if demand for the health center’s services increases throughout the year, according to the bill. Funds would be credited back to students if the fee is not used by the end of the fiscal year, the bill said.
According to SGA’s website, the fee could also potentially lower the Student Health Insurance Plan’s cost and add increased student representation to the health center’s budget discussions.
In February, university administrators voted against implementing a similar fee that would have charged full–time students $136 and part–time students $68 annually.
Divestment from military, security and defense companies
The second question will ask students whether they support the University System of Maryland Foundation and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation divesting from certain security, military and defense companies.
If passed by the student body, the nonbinding referendum will call on the foundations to divest from companies that “consistently, knowingly, and directly facilitate and enable state violence and repression, war and occupation, or severe violations of international law and human rights” in places including Palestine, the Philippines and Yemen.
[UMD community members hold sit-in, vigil to honor people killed in Gaza]
The ballot question comes after an almost identical resolution failed to advance in the SGA in November, The Diamondback previously reported.
Days later, this university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter circulated a petition, which gained more than 650 signatures, to add the referendum question to the 2025 SGA election ballot.
The SGA passed an emergency bill in March to add the question to the ballot.
Similar resolutions failed to pass in the SGA in 2017, 2019 and last spring, The Diamondback previously reported.
The SGA elections will run from April 1 to 3. Once the election period begins, students can vote online on the two ballot questions, as well as for SGA president, executive vice president and legislative positions.
