Letter: Rise in tuition makes no sense

Editor:

President Hall’s proposed 36 percent tuition increase over three years is at best obscene. (The total proposed tuition increase is 43 percent; the 7 percent difference is mandated by the state.) We repeatedly have heard of the tight budget situation that the University finds itself in. Yet all around us large and spacious new buildings are erected and what seems like a limitless stream of money is being spent on programs, equipment and other items around campus. For example, the new multi-million dollar Student Housing project near Old Main is completely superfluous. That is a service that market forces and the private sector can and will always provide more efficiently. In addition, why in such lean times is USU spending money upgrading Romney Stadium for a season with only four home games and sub-par expectations?

Clearly, the university has a difficult time discerning between wants and needs as it operates in an imaginary world of make believe outside the market forces the rest of us live in. An insatiable and unrestrained propensity for spending have become the burden that must be shouldered by students who are already working 30-40 hours a week during the school year and up to 80 during the summer.

Any private institution who is unable to control expenditures and forced to increase its price by such a drastic rate will soon find itself dead. If I were to insist to my bosses that a 36 percent increase in what we charge our customers was necessary in order to meet our basic “needs” and stay in business they would laugh at me and promptly issue me a pink slip. Unfortunately, USU does not operate within the parameters of scarce resources and market demands.

It is also troubling that ASUSU will vote on the increase, though as officers they have their tuition waived. Tuition increases hurt. Those making the decisions, administrators and student representatives alike, ought to internalize that pain as much or more than those the increase is imposed upon. Perhaps President Hall should spend a summer working a peon job here in Cache County or on campus for $6/hour, pay rent and other living expenses and then consider if an increase of over $1,000 in tuition is reasonable, responsible and necessary.

Thomas Reed Grover