All-Staff Opinion Column

I’ll be the latest in a long line of people to say this: the academic system in the United States is a slavering she-beast who births her babies and then promptly devours them. So, will I ever be surprised at hearing the news about a tuition increase or a new student fee? Never. Tuition increases should be regarded as inevitable and expected in the same way we accept death, spam emails and the planned obsolescence of the model of iPhone you just bought.

So, that’s the negative way to look at it. Here’s a ray of sunshine, from me to you: we’re still doing a lot better at UNI than many young people enrolled in college around the country. Since most UNI students are receiving Iowa resident tuition, allow me to generalize slightly. Most of us are getting a year of college education for less than $10,000, and that’s a pretty great deal. I hate that it’s considered a great deal, but it is.

The cost of college is absolutely out of control, but focusing on a small mid-year tuition increase is dangerously myopic. What we should be getting upset about are things with far deeper roots. There is a trend of “over-credentialism” causing everyone to go to college, even those who don’t need to for their job and those who cannot keep up in the classroom.

Administrative costs at universities continue to bloat unchecked, while adjunct professors repeatedly get shafted. Students are being allowed to go on in fields where they will never be successful just because there are few programs with continuation assessments in place to stop them. I would entreat you to dedicate your torches and pitchforks to one of these problems before going after such a small tuition increase. – Hannah Car-Murphy

As you’ve likely already heard, come January the students of UNI (and ISU) will see a three percent increase in tuition. That ends up being roughly $100 per student, for a total increase of $1.2 million in revenue for the school. Keep in mind that figure is coming in for the spring semester only but will continue to roll in each semester going forward.

I couldn’t agree more that the University deserves an increase in revenue that will be used to further enhance the programs here. After all, I am very thankful for the opportunities that UNI has provided me with, and I only hope that this tuition increase will go to doing the same for more students. But did the source of this increase really need to be the students – the very individuals that are affected by the already underfunded institution?

Remember this past summer when Branstad finally did something good for education by approving a $5.1 million increase in UNI’s base appropriation? That’s roughly 4.25 semesters worth of the new tuition increase. Couldn’t the tuition increase then have been put off and instead those 4.25 semesters could have been used to work on an increase in state funding?

It’s not news that UNI (and ISU) is underfunded in comparison to the University of Iowa. And God forbid the Boards of Regents approve an increase in the tuition there. They’re already facing enough scrutiny at the U of I for recently hiring the questionable new president in a questionable fashion.

At any rate, where is this is $1.2 million increase in revenue going? I don’t know, and I don’t know if anyone else is certain either. Some officials say it’ll go toward “maintaining the excellent programs and opportunities we have” (whatever that might mean), others say it’ll go toward increasing university salaries.

Stay tuned, and in the mean time, four successful plasma donations should cover the tuition increase. – Abbi Cobb

The most important thing to remember about the recently announced tuition increase is that you have no say in the matter. The three state universities in Iowa are run by people who you will likely never meet, and if you do, you will not have a long conversation with them to discuss the issues. The bottom line is the universities are now officially business vocational schools. On both ends. On the front end, they want as much of your money, your parent’s money and the governments money as the can possibly get. On the back end, they want to train you to go out into the world with your crushing student debt and make as much money as possible without regard to any concerns for any other human being. In another word: Capitalism.

I suppose it was inevitable this would happen given the current failed leadership in the country. Our terrible Congress has bled down to our terrible State House, led by King Branstad, who apparently gets to rule and appoint Board of Regents members forever and the Regent members themselves. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh and one or two of them actually care about what they’re doing, but the way I see it, they want your money.

Education has very clearly become the second priority at the universities and, while I am concerned we are getting another increase (whether it’s labeled “fee” or “tuition” it all comes out of the bank the same), we have a much bigger problem than a spring tuition increase: the continued degradation of education, knowledge and intelligence in a country that continually lies to itself about its claims to exceptionalism. – Michael R. Jackson

It may well be the case that it is unfair for me to support the three percent undergraduate tuition increase, since I am now a graduate student and have reaped the benefits of the 2 ½ year tuition freeze, but I do anyway. I stand with Katie Evans and those in student leadership who came before her that fought to remove the overdue tuition freeze. The memories of Price Labs and UNI’s foreign language programs, I am sure, still burn in the minds of many.

Our alma mater should not be held to the fire to make these sorts of dramatic cuts. It is difficult to think of UNI as a self-respecting institution when it is removing pieces of its liberal arts program, the core of a well rounded education, just to get by. The new funds, about three million dollars, should help our university defend itself against such harsh decisions. Moreover, the in-state tuition for our university is about 25 percent lower than the national average; the three percent increase in our tuition will not hurt UNI’s reputation for its ability to provide affordable quality education. – Jesse Moeller