Opinion
Right plan, right now
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The state and national climate around higher education is telling us one simple fact: Students cannot access higher education without incurring large amounts of debt. This is a problem like no generation has ever seen, and it will impact us for years to come. When legislators present legislation in order to assist students in paying for college, any time is the right time. However, the Editorial Board of The Badger Herald disagrees.
In an editorial yesterday (“Right plan, wrong time,” Jan. 31) the Editorial Board said students need to wait on the back burner due to other state priorities. But does the board remember that for the past two state budgets students have taken on the burden of balancing the budget with sky-high percentage increases in their tuition? Students need more financial aid, and for the past five years students have waited, protested and advocated for themselves.
Bottom line, tuition increases price students out of the University of Wisconsin System. As the financial obligation of students’ families goes up each year, the idea of a student working his or her way through a UW school is becoming a myth — a myth some legislators still like to perpetuate. Therefore, when legislators are in touch with student financial needs, their efforts should be appreciated, not pushed away.
Recession or otherwise, for the Editorial Board to not recognize the importance of this legislation is nothing short of a slap in the face of thousands of students on this campus and around the state who need the grant increases. Moreover, for the Editorial Board to not understand that a recession affects students is bewildering. Recessions do not just hit full-time employees, but they also hit part-time student employees, student parents and parents with children in college as well.
It is imperative that this legislation is introduced and passed so that low-income students are not left with monetary gaps they cannot fill. Any time is the right time for students who need access to UW schools.
Jane Wierzbicki
UW graduate student
Anthropology
jwierzbicki@wisc.edu
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Jane, the real problem is that students are incurring massive debt on degrees that don’t pay: Art history, Spanish, Phys Ed, Psychology…
Ask the MDs if they think their $200,000 med school bill was worth it. Ask the engineers, the math majors, and computer geeks, for that matter.
True many degrees do not pay very well…but what comes out of those degrees is very much needed in our society. You wouldn’t have psychologists if no one majors in the respective degree…