While tipping a pint of Tecate at the Hard Rock Café, my friend Marcos, an ASU student of political science, asked me what I thought about the proposed tuition hike at ASU. If only he had known that I felt so strongly about it, he probably would have held his question.
I had just read about the Regents' meeting last Thursday, which addressed the hike. It seems the process to see this through will begin in January instead of April as originally planned. Let it never be said that our school encourages unnecessary delays -- at least not when there's profit to be made.
The tuition hike will cost students up to $1,000 more every semester. It's possible that this amount will be lowered a bit, but there is no doubt that some substantial increase will be had. I explain my case to Marcos and he arches his eyebrows and says, "Well, they're just offsetting the big budget cuts put forth by the state!"
I'd like to believe that, but this hike is not about that. It revolves around changing our status as a university, with our new President Crow using cool words such as "multi-versity." This is rather catchy, but below the surface lurks the age-old motive: money.
The proposed increase doesn't simply accommodate the loss of state dollars. If the current proposal passes, it will rake in $42.3 million under the cloak that this will make it easier for students who aren't so financially well off to attend ASU. The school is only looking to allocate $15 million, about one-third of the overall intake, to the scholarship cause. This is a sweet idea and all, but if the tuition weren't a grand more every semester, less students would demand financial aid.
We all know how easy it is to get scholarships, closely resembling teeth pulling. I'm sure with this new money every dime will go where it's supposed to go. Of course, if enough people don't apply or meet the required income requirements, we can look forward to the same haphazard and insipid spending at the end of the fiscal year that we see in so many other departments at this business ... er, school.
I can scarcely count the number of times I've heard of the millions of dollars in financial aid programs that go unclaimed every year. Adding $15 million more is ingenious (or ingenuous, I forget which).
On top of the money allocated to scholarships that is sure to go unclaimed, there is still the matter of the remaining $27.3 million, of which it seems unlikely that even a majority will go toward increasing teacher salaries. An awful lot of money is getting swept under someone's rug.
If anyone doubts that our fine school is about money, just watch as Starbucks stores multiply like bunnies on Viagra throughout next semester. I realize we are taking the brunt of our state's appalling financial practices, but using this as an excuse to bill the students is inexcusable.
It's a good thing we have ASASU on our side, looking for ways not to oppose the increase and merely bickering about how to distribute it. Door No. 2, in this case, is not any different than the first.
With student body president Michael Leingang saying he feels students are ready for such an increase and that they know what a quality education costs and are willing to pay, no wonder implementation talks are being pushed up to January.
I'm unsure what quality education he's speaking of anyway -- the one that made us Playboy 's No. 1 party school or Maxim's choice for most attractive female student body. These awards are prestigious, for certain, but those of us who are already heavily invested in our programs have no illusions that this change will make our ASU degrees look like any less of a joke, quite the contrary. This increase will invariably cause the out-of-staters to choose other schools and make ASU's graduate programs lower their standards to meet projected enrollments.
On a campus where we protest and gather for virtually anything, I'm surprised how many people have simply rolled over for a $2,000-a-year blow to the bank account. We'll protest a war that, consequentially, affects our futures very little. Yet, we do nothing to oppose that which blatantly affects our lives here and now in a big way.
Well, as for Marcos and me, our debate continues. I'd love to have his faith, but when we have moved to increase student housing, opened the door to more students paying higher tuition, and become this "multi-versity," I have little doubt my checkbook and the value of my degree will be the real victims.
Darren Todd is an English literature senior. Reach him at lawrence.todd@asu.edu.
