The University of Wisconsin Associated Students of Madison kicked off Wednesday with a group of about 50 students to promote involvement, recruit new members to student government and launch their new campaign to keep college affordable.
Committees came together to perform skits about their particular functions, intertwined with a saga about a girl who is accepted to UW and finds out the price of tuition and books is far too high. The girl is forced to sell her shoes to pay for textbooks.
ASM introduced the Campaign for Quality Accessible Education three weeks ago, according to Adam Sheka, the campaign chair. The project will gather resources from all ASM committees, and planning stages began a week ago.
Along with the price of tuition and textbooks, the loss of talented faculty and diversity are major issues for the student government. Because of the rising costs of tuition, the percentage of low-income students at the university has dropped from 26 percent in 1994 to 21 percent last year.
?We are losing good faculty, and we are not able to bring in students from diverse backgrounds because they can?t afford to come here,? Sheka said. ?[The problem] deals with a lot of issues which is why it is an ASM-wide campaign.?
The diversity committee will work particularly toward lowering tuition to make UW more affordable for students from medium- to low-income households, who otherwise would be unable to afford tuition.
?Tuition has a lot to do with the socioeconomic diversity of campus, so keeping those prices low is important for getting a wide group of students to the campus,? said Student Council Engineering Representative Ashley Huth.
Posters plastered walls in the Humanities building, showing different facts about how much students are paying for things that are required to attend UW. According to one sign, tuition prices have doubled since 1998, and another sign said the average price students pay for textbooks is $900 per year.
?We are ? trying to get a state reinvestment in the UW System, because right now they keep cutting our budget,? Sheka said. ?Funding for the UW System has been going down and down while tuition has been going up and up.?
Though planning for the committee has just begun, this is something ASM does not want to rush, Sheka said. The campaign has no set plans yet but will be meeting this weekend to hash out more details to their approach.
?This is an issue that is important to so many students and to students who haven?t even come to the university yet,? Sheka added. ?We?re setting it up for a better system in the future.?
