Most student fees are allocated toward services available for students only, but students at the University of Wisconsin-Superior face competition from the faculty and staff when one of those services becomes easy enough to access by a simple grasp of hand.

The Collegiate Readership Program provides students access to newspapers every day, and it is a service included in their fee.

"UWS Student Government Association enters into a contract with USA Today every three years to become part of the collegiate readership program," Tammy Fanning, the assistant dean of students, said. 

USA Today, the precursor of this readership program, and the Duluth News Tribune are being delivered every day at three different locations on campus: the Yellowjacket Union, Holden Fine and Applied Arts, and the Marcovich Wellness Center. There is just an average of 100 of each newspaper being delivered daily on campus at these locations.

Lately, the Student Government Association, as well as the student population, has seen an increase in the non-student population using this service on a daily basis. Whether it is staff, faculty or even people from the community, not only students are taking newspapers, and that is what SGA is worried about.

SGA will add to the newspaper shelves a sign reminding everybody that newspaper are for student only. The sign will read, "Stop! This program is for students only!"

Before this program, students could only access the news by inserting a few quarters into a box that would contain the daily newspapers. Now, students pay only a couple of dollars a semester and can access the news daily. The average cost of the readership program, per student, is of approximately five dollars per academic year.

Cara Stephens, a student at UW-Superior, reads the news on and off.

“Whenever I have free time, and when there are newspapers available, I take time to read the headlines, and some of the local stories," she said. “I didn’t know these newspapers were paid by student fees, and I wish I would have known this a little before."

People can now access the news via the Internet, but the use of newspaper is not comparable.

“It is an incentive to read out of a piece of paper, not a computer screen," Stephens said.

The program contract ends at the end of 2012. Fanning says students noticing “non-students” taking newspapers are encouraged to confront the person, and maybe ask them what the reason is behind pocketing students’ services.