The Fee Review Committee is meeting today for the last time, a meeting at which it will submit a recommendation on which groups are granted an increase in student fees.

The referendum, with the proposed fee requests, went online Monday and Tuesday for students to voice their opinions on each fee increase. Several of them came back with strong responses, as students let the committee know where their priorities lie.

Students ranked Health Service Operations as their number-one priority, and 35.7 percent of students asked for a $12 increase in the program.

Those who cast their votes, overwhelmingly shot down an increase in Athletics fees, as 74 percent voted against any increase. Maybe a few wins would help that number.

Some of the results are pretty murky, as they’re split evenly down the board and don’t show up high on the priority list for students. But others are valid and make sense if the committee really looks at them.

The committee needs to take a hard look at some of these numbers, decide which are strong enough to realistically represent students and take students’ thoughts seriously.

Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs, cautioned the committee from taking too much stock in the students’ votes, saying “the students who voted on the referendum have not by any means had the information we have had.”

But Stafford and the rest of the faculty that sit on the committee aren’t paying the same fees they are debating over. The programs the money is going to are being used by students, not the committee.

The committee was charged with taking all aspects into account — the presentations, each others’ arguments and the opinion of more than 1,000 students who voiced their opinions.

Every penny counts, according to Stafford. And that same approach should be used for students: every vote counts.

We applaud those in charge of making this vote possible and the students who voted and care about where their money is going. We’re excited about the opportunity to finally voice our thoughts on where our money goes.

Now it’s time to use the students’ votes. Now we’ll see if the committee cares enough about students to take them into account, or if all it cares about is the money.

As Stafford’s motto says, “students first.” We’ll see how much weight it carries when the student vote is considered.