Non-students will pay $49 for a semester of bus rides next school year, seven dollars more than NIU students, the Student Association Mass Transit Board decided.

Other than tradition, the mass transit board, at its last meeting of the school year, could not offer another reason why non-students will pay more for a bus pass.

Non-students are considered people who do not go to school at all, SAMTB Executive Director Todd Allen said.

This year, bus passes cost $42 for a non-student, which means they will have to find an extra $7 to pay for bus service next year. The student bus fee also will go up $7 from $35 this year.

Mass transit board member Pete Donnelly said $49 for a bus pass is too high. “You cannot have it too high or before long you are not going to have any pass sales,” Donnelly said.

He also suggested that if mass transit wants more money from bus passes, then they should promote sales to DeKalb High School students, the main buyers of passes.

However, high school students, along with senior citizens and the disabled, already get a break with bus passes. Next year, they will have to pay only $43 for a pass—a mere dollar over the NIU student rate.

The board passed the rates in a voice vote with little opposition.

Concern about the prices for the passes came from SAMTB Fiscal Adviser Rick Schaschwary who said NIU administrators were asking for reasons why bus passes were higher than the cost of service for NIU students.

“(The administration) asked me, and I did not have an answer, so I had to bring it to the board,” Schaschwary said.

Overall, the board was not too worried about losing pass customers. “The bottom line is that students are paying 99 percent of the costs to run this system, (and) .03 percent of our budget comes from pass sales, which amounts to nothing,” Allen said.

The board also decided a summer bus pass will cost $5.