OUR VIEW: Student input needed in tuition decision

Fifteen dollars a credit. It may not seem like much, but over four years it adds up to around $2,200 – not exactly a small chunk of change.
   
The Caine College of the Arts is considering following the example of the Huntsman School of Business and requiring students to pay differential tuition – an additional charge on top of students’ regular tuition and fees. The money would help create new majors in the college. It would also fund a new building on land the university recently purchased from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
   
We understand the reasoning behind differential tuition. It allows colleges to recruit more qualified staff, update infrastructure and provide programs that help students secure jobs after graduation. All we want to know is when the line will be drawn. Are deans and administrators asking themselves if it’s worth it for their students to pay hundreds – and in many cases, thousands – of dollars on top of tuition, books and student fees? Small differences in fees and fines are acceptable, but when two students on the same campus are taking extremely different hits to their bank accounts, something seems to be a little off.
   
We commend the business school for the new programs they’ve been able to provide in the past five years. The SEED program, Entrepreneurship Center and a new one-year MBA degree are just a few of wonderful changes they’ve made. However, $67 a credit – the price business students taking upper-division classes are paying this semester – is a steep price. Even though our business school tuition creeps closer to that of the U of U and BYU business schools, we still fall behind their programs. We’re not doing a terrible job by any means, but students are pouring money into a program only to see slow results.
   
In a town-hall-style meeting last week, arts administrators told students they were putting forth a fraction of what they would pay at a renowned school such as Juilliard. To us, this seems like a silly comparison. As good as our music program is, students are getting a fraction of the education they would at a world-famous school. The college needs to stop spoon-feeding students rhetoric and create a truly open forum for them to express their feelings.
   
In the end, whether the Caine College of the Arts implements differential tuition should not be left up to the men sitting at the top of the school. The students who spend hours in the theater, the practice room or the design studio should be the ones whose voices are heard. We encourage students to make their voice heard – no matter what side of the issue they’re on. They have more power than they realize, it’s just a matter of exercising it.