The Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) fee is a mandatory CSU Chico student fee. The IRA fee is under the original authority of the IRA Board. This fee funds programs that are closely related to an academic department.

The IRA fee exists as a remnant of a long past failed plan to destroy the power of student governments statewide.

After the Associated Students government, lead by Jane Dolan, voted in 1971 to send money to a North Vietnamese hospital in apology for our country's bombing it, the California State Legislature was outraged.

Chico Assemblyman Ray Johnson wanted to destroy the power of student governments to act in such political ways. However, at that time the student fees that were allocated for political purposes important to the students were also the same dollars that supported all of the academic programs that would not be funded otherwise. The legislature wanted to destroy the political power of the student government, but still wanted them to fund these programs.

They split the student fees into an Activity Fee, and the IRA fee. They then proceeded to attempt to abolish the Activity Fee. They failed in that however, and we are stuck with this split fee structure, with the IRA under the control of a board of the university, not the Associated Students.

Some of the campus programs that the IRA fee funds are:

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