Seniors who frequently visit Mashouf Wellness Center can reap one more added benefit after graduation this spring: investor credit.

Those who work out regularly in the newly opened gym have different memberships available to them, aside from current enrollment and using the facilities for free. One of which includes an alumni membership and for alumni who graduated between 2010-2017, they received investor credit for financing the construction through a fee attached to their tuition at the time.

“Those students who were enrolled during those times and graduated during those times have investor credit,” said Ryan Samuels, memberships and outreach coordinator at Mashouf.

For the past seven years, the University applied a student fee for Mashouf construction, according to Samuels.

The other way that alumni can come in and acquire a membership is if they graduated before 2010 or do not have any investor credit and are a part of the SF State alumni association.

“Alumni who graduated before 2010, or do not have investor credit will not be eligible to purchase a Mashouf Wellness membership without having an alumni association membership. There are no discounts; it is a benefit of being a member with the alumni association,” he said.

The alumni association membership costs an additional one-time fee of $89.

Samuels said investor credit is recorded in money. For example, if a student paid $42 for summer 2016, paid $90 for fall 2016 and paid $90 for spring 2017, then they would have a total credit of $222 on their account that can be used toward a membership.

Samuels said the investor credit varies upon each student and how much was paid.

“It depends on the fees, each year the university may adjust fees. And so, when they do adjust the fees, either higher or lower, that’s the fee that was recorded,” Samuels said.

All that money combined was put into the student’s account when Mashouf was opened.

The membership information available on the front desk in Mashouf lists the pricing. For alumni, the fees include $733 for an annual membership, $298 for the summer semester, and $138 for a summer membership.

However, the investor credit only seems to cover one semester’s use.

Alumnus Manuel Terrado attended SF State from 2009 to 2013 and learned about the opening of the new Wellness Center through a fellow alumnus and decided to check it out. He said that his friend received one semester credit and so did he, despite attending the school for a longer period.

“I got the same thing and I went there for almost four and a half more years, so I kind of felt underwhelmed…  we should have a discount rate or more credits because four years,” Terrado said.

Terrado said it felt unfair because of the duration that students did not have an adequate gym to use and the feeling was underwhelming to discover that he has only one semester of credits to attend Mashouf.

“After that I have to pay a flat fee of every three months or year fee. That’s a turnoff. I feel like it’s a slap in the face in my honest opinion.”

“I’m not trying to bash my old school but I just feel like it’s just a slap in the face for the alumni,” Terrado said.

He suggested perhaps extending the credits to last a year in order to rectify the situation.

“We suffered for four or five years in a little box gym that’s the size of my room,” said Terrado. “And they’re telling us, hey you have to pay this flat fee, which is very expensive to continue to use it.”

The pricing structure for the Mashouf memberships were determined by CORE, an outside contractor who conducted statistics based on what businesses in the area that are focused on gym-related wellness and then comparing their pricing and seeing what SF State has to offer in return and trying to calculate what membership rates should be, Samuels said.

The final numbers for pricing were approved by the president and Associated Students, Inc. representatives.

Kinesiology major and senior Gustavo Gonzalez said he would come back to visit only and use the Wellness Center if he was in the area.

“I know that they charge quite a bit, and it doesn’t really make sense (for me to sign up) when there’s other gyms nearby. They offer probably more than this gym,” Gonzalez said.

Terrado added, “I would definitely pay for it if it wasn’t so expensive. It’s a step-up from the old one. But paying 800, (almost) a thousand dollars the whole year, nah man I’m good.”