Tuition increase to pay for Stroh Center

In March of 2009 students voted to support the building of the new Stroh Arena and an additional $60 per semester fee. The 4,700-seat convocation center is starting to be transformed where Lot 6, BGSU’s main parking lot, used to be. Although students voted in support of the center, I feel it is not necessary!


Each student will be paying 120 dollars more a year to have the Stroh center. $100 of the fee will be used specifically for the $36 million Center and $20 for new student parking.

According to the Bowling Green State University website, “The arena will be the site of new student convocations, graduation ceremonies, concerts, high-profile speakers, and other campus and community events. In addition, it will serve as the new home for Falcon basketball and volleyball.”

Anderson Arena currently serves the purposes mentioned above and has been doing so for the past 56 years. Anderson Arena can seat 5,200 people which will seat 500 more than the Stroh Center.

I decided to calculate where the money to build the center is coming from. The university is charging students will an additional fee, which I mentioned above. With more than 18,000 students enrolled at BGSU, the university will make two million a year off of the student fee. According to the BGSU website, the center is named for Kermit F. and Mary Lu Stroh and their family, who donated $7.7 million for the arena project earlier this year. The website also states there was another $50,000 gift from BGSU trustee John Harbal and his wife. That comes to only $9,830,000. That means BGSU still needs $26,170,000. Will university be charging students for the next 13 years? If a student is in school for four years they will be paying an extra $480 JUST for the Stroh Center.