Instructional Resilience and Enhancement Fee

IREF includes: Zoom Pro for Students, Microsoft, Adobe, funding for the Student Help Desk, funding for the Student Technology Equity Program (STEP), Kaltura, bCourses, Gradescope, Turnitin, AWS infrastructure, Ally, SensusAccess, Alt Media, Poll Everywhere, iClicker Cloud, funding for classroom tech support, funding for instructional computing labs, Zoom webinar licensing for large course, and Hypothesis.

The Student Technology Equity Program (STEP) began during COVID-19 but has continued, and is a program that provides laptops and other hardware devices to students in need.

For certain students, financial aid will cover IREF.

The previous ($51 per-semester) Student Technology Fee expired in Spring 2021. While the majority of voting students voted to approve the fee, the minimum vote threshold required for a student referendum was not met.

The cost to students is $117.50 per semester or $235 per academic year.

UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara all have course materials and services fees that fund similar software and support services.

An IREF Advisory Committee composed of campus leadership, students and staff experts meets on a regular schedule.

Many of these costs have long been shared between students and the campus via the long-standing Student Technology Fee. When the Student Technology Fee expired in Spring 2021, the campus found and implemented a more stable means to continue this cost-sharing tradition via the IREF.

Starting in Fall 2023 and going forward, undergraduate students who are employed by the University as an Academic Student Employee (ASE) have two options for having the cost of the fee covered. ASEs who have an employment appointment of 25% or higher will have the full fee covered by the hiring department or Principal Investigator (PI) per semester of employment. ASEs who have an employment appointment under 25% will have $35 of the total fee covered by the hiring department or Principal Investigator (PI) per semester of employment. The student is responsible for paying the remaining amount. Students without those options will need to cover the cost of this fee.

If your funding package from your academic department includes tuition and fees, contact your home department. Departments that cover fee balances not covered by a partial fee remission will pay this additional charge.

Students who have applied for and are receiving financial aid will have this included in their Cost of Attendance and aid packages. Starting in Fall 2023 and going forward, graduate students who are employed by the University as a Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) or in similar Academic Student Employee (ASE) positions have two options for having the cost of the fee covered. GSRs or ASEs who have an employment appointment of 25% or higher will have the full fee covered by the hiring department or Principal Investigator (PI) per semester of employment. GSRs or ASEs who have an employment appointment under 25% will have $35 of the total fee covered by the hiring department or Principal Investigator (PI) per semester of employment. The student is responsible for paying the remaining amount. Graduate students without those options will need to cover the cost of this fee.

You can direct questions to iref@berkeley.edu.

No. Concurrent Enrollment students (students from other universities who are enrolled via UC Extension and take courses at UC Berkeley) are not assessed this fee.