What budget cuts?
Budget cuts?
What budget cuts?
Freshman Heather McVey’s pretty face wore a puzzled expression, as if a little surprised at the question.
“I don’t know anything about them,” she said, laughing nervously. “I’m still undeclared. I have no direction in my life right now. I don’t know about budgets.”
Neither does sophomore Chanda Asay, a family and consumer science major. But unlike McVey, she’s read the headlines. And she isn’t complaining. Why point fingers when lawmakers are doing such a fine job?
“I think they’re doing all right for now,” Asay said. “Sometimes they do a good job at budgeting than other times.”
If these comments come as a kick in the teeth to those lobbying the Utah Legislature in support of higher education, the words of an old poem may lend comfort, “There’s nothing much amiss: What they don’t know will never hurt — aye, ignorance is bliss.”
While McVey and Asay may represent the norm, several Utah State University students queried at The Hub on Tuesday seemed to care about the torrent of budget cuts, mandated by the Legislature, that have cost the university in excess of $12 million.
Listen to Muhammad Hussain, a junior majoring in business information systems and agribusiness.
“I don’t think the legislators are taking us into consideration,” he said. “Obviously they could do a lot more to retain nonresident students. Many have transferred to other schools. I would have transferred, too, if I had the choice.”
Hussain says state money is best spent on higher education in these dire economic times.
“Rather than spending on things that could be delayed, why not spend on higher education, which is an important part of everybody’s life,” he asked. “They [lawmakers] are what they are because of the education they received.”
Kristina Pack, a sophomore majoring in American studies, is of the same mind.
“If they’re not going to support higher education, who’s going to lead the country in the future? Without college, there is nothing to go on to,” she said.
For Pack, the cuts have hit closer to home. She’s lost good friends to tuition increases.
“I feel horrible for my friends from out of state,” she said. “Some of them have dropped out. They can’t afford to go to school.”
Still, tuition at USU is not all that high, counters sophomore Sean Kohlmeyer, a forestry major from Oregon.
“I kind of agree with the tuition increases,” he said. “It is so much cheaper for me to attend school here as a nonresident, than to attend Oregon State University as a resident.”
However, that doesn’t mean he supports the Legislature’s recent budget decisions.
“There’s a lot of overkill when it comes to roads. I mean, roads need to be repaired, but not as much as they have been,” Kohlmeyer said. “A lot of the expenditure in that area is unnecessary. I’d rather go to school than [have the Legislature] build roads. [College is] how the legislators got to where they are.”
Sophomore Richard Parsons, an exercise science major from New Jersey, can’t find justification for either budget cuts or tuition increases. To him, these measures send a disturbing message:
“That [lawmakers] really don’t care about us, and that other things are more important,” Parsons said.
Graduate student Ram Swaminathan takes a more humorous tack on the whole affair. He points to what he considers sage advice offered on a familiar bumper sticker:
“Balance the budget. Declare politicians as game and sell hunting stamps.”
–leon@cc.usu.edu