Opinion
UW tuition raise unfeasible given financial climate
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Also by Jonah Zinn:
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Chancellor Martin’s proposed Madison Initiative for Undergraduates will supposedly close the gap in funding created by the recession and will magically make college more affordable while increasing tuition. While this may seem like a reasonable solution to the university’s money woes, it is merely a short-term patch for a problem that is continuously ignored.
Martin’s reasoning is that by increasing tuition, we will be able to meet all need-based aid. However, since 2002,
With everyone losing money from the recession (families and working class students being among the hardest hit), it seems absurd the cost of anything — let alone an education — should increase. With an obvious deficit to overcome, it is wrong that families and working-class students — two groups the Madison Initiative ignores — should shoulder this cost while coping with the everyday losses that come with the recession.
Before turning to families and students who will not be able to pay off this increased debt for many years, maybe Chancellor Martin should look through the university’s budget for ways to decrease spending. For example, why should students be paying more while the chancellor is earning nearly half a million dollars per year?
In today’s society, a college degree is an absolute necessity to secure even a menial existence. Housing prices have skyrocketed along with health care costs, and it seems hard to imagine that gas prices won’t continue to rise. In western Europe, higher education has become either free or very affordable and has effectively raised the standard of living in these countries while combating some of the same problems we have in
The national spending indicates that education is clearly not the top priority in the minds of American politicians. When defense spending reached $626.6 billion in 2008 and national spending for all education is only $56 billion, the inequities are apparent. Education should be this country’s top concern at all times, because giving future generations an opportunity to create a better world should far and away be the most important goal in any society.
Until our country changes its priorities and puts a higher value on higher education, increases in tuition will only create temporary remedies for a problem that engulfs American policymaking and will come at the cost of middle-class families and working-class students. Higher education is a right, and short-term increases in tuition will not permanently ensure everyone’s rights are met.
Jonah Zinn (jzinn@wisc.edu) is a freshman with an undecided major.
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what the flying fuck? working class students, those who make under $80,000 get FINANCIAL AID from wealthier students under the plan. What rock have you been under?
Read his thoughts here so you know this guy is kind of an overambitious freshman
http://badgerherald.com/news/2009/04/03/votenocoalition_pl.php * “In today’s society, a college degree is an absolute necessity to secure even a menial existence.”
What about electricians, plumbers, etc.? They make more money than a lot of teachers, without the debt of college to pay off.
“With everyone losing money from the recession (families and working class students being among the hardest hit)”
statistics please? Not EVERYONE is losing money.
While I agree with you that raising tuition is not a realistic solution and that it unfairly ignores certain segments of students, I have to say that some of your reasons are illogical. For example, if Europe has nearly free college, then someone else is paying for it… probably through taxes. So really, people are still being burdened with cost, just through another way. I also agree that the University should look to cut back in certain non-education related areas, but brining up the Chancellor’s salary is a weak point at best.
“However, since 2002, Madison has seen a 5 to 6 percent increase per year in tuition”
Well that is the National Inflation rate so really tuition is the same cost adjusted for inflation…
“Housing prices have skyrocketed…”
Did you miss the collapse of the housing market that was a big cause of this economic recession you go on about? Because during that collapse, prices dropped. Considerably.
“Until our country changes its priorities and puts a higher value on higher education, increases in tuition will only create temporary remedies…”
So you acknowledge now that there is nothing the University really has control over here? By saying it’s up to Congress to make a laster difference, you excplicitly state that the increase is a temporary remedy. So it’s like a sickness. Until they develop a cure for something, wouldn’t you rather take the stuff that makes it better for a little bit than anything at all?
This is really terrible.
The Chancellor’s plan openly doesn’t try to “meet all need-based aid”- actually, it leaves a $10 million annual gap between the stated need and the unmet need. It’s simply a step in the direction of offering more financial aid, not a fix- I’m not sure there is a “fix”.
i would like to have free health care, free education, free food, free housing and maybe clothes as well. Its my right, and i shouldn’t have to pay for it!
“Until our country changes its priorities and puts a higher value on higher education, increases in tuition will only create temporary remedies for a problem that engulfs American policymaking”
But that’s really all Biddy can deal with. If you want a European-style system of higher education, that is going to take decades to implement, and the university and Biddy Martin can’t just sit around while they wait for that to happen. In the meantime, they need to make sure that degree you get when you graduate is worth something, and considering UW is the most prestigious school many in-staters have any hope of attending, they need to make sure that degree is worth as much as possible. They can’t do that with the current tuition rate, and considering that tuition rate is far below market value (UW is currently the 2nd cheapest school in the Big Ten, though most would consider it one of the top three in terms of quality) it seems perfectly reasonable that the money needed to insure that UW remains a world-class institution would come from that revenue stream (especially when the state is facing a massive budget crisis). You are simply not going to get something for nothing in the American university system as it stands right now - and as long as it stays that way, funding though avenues such as this is really the only option we have.
”[…]because a college degree is not considered a right but rather a privilege.”
When you were born, you weren’t promised a college degree, nor is it essential to living a good life. It is a privilege you earn, not a right.
Government protected loan sharks prey on poor ignorant college students who go into debt to get an education that will never pay off for most.
I suppose it’s a better bet than all the poor kids playing BB hoping to make it in the NBA.
Open mic night at the BH or what? this is just turrrrible
How about starting by re-considering the Chancellor’s salary. Somehow, I have a hard time listening to her talk out of both sides of her mouth.
I agree that we need to re-consider her salary. She needs a big fat raise. She figured out in a few months the obvious - tuition has to rise. Something that our previous Chancellors couldn’t figure out for years.
She is truly undercompensated. Everything I have seen from Biddy suggests that she is worth every penny of the $500,000 salary and then some.
“What about electricians, plumbers, etc.? They make more money than a lot of teachers, without the debt of college to pay off.
“With everyone losing money from the recession (families and working class students being among the hardest hit)”
statistics please? Not EVERYONE is losing money.”
Few people are building these days. My father is a plumber’s apprentice and most of my family work as either electricians or plumbers. Most have been laid off or had their hours/pay cut considerably over the past year. Neither have a degree to fall back on.
Good article, Jonah. :)