Some Massachusetts lawmakers are questioning the half-million-dollar price tag for the inauguration last month of the new chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, a weeklong fete that featured a concert by the hip-hop artist Kanye West and a celebratory dinner of seared sea scallops and roasted filet of beef.

Private donors paid the bulk of the $512,525 tab for the inauguration of Michael F. Collins, a former health-care executive, but, regardless of the source, the price of the celebration was too high, the two chairmen of the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Higher Education told The Boston Globe. The university spent three times as much as it did for the inauguration of Mr. Collins’s predecessor, in 2002, and the total was twice as much as the cost of the 2003 inauguration of the chancellor of the university system’s flagship campus, in Amherst.

The legislative critics said they were concerned that contributions to the costly event could come at the expense of donations for other pressing needs, such as student services and campus facilities, for which the university is trying to raise private funds.