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, Madison has seen a 5 to 6 percent increase per year in tuition. This steady rise in tuition does not appear to be slowing down, so how will the Madison Initiative ensure that students applying for financial aid 10 years down the road are guaranteed a college education? Madison Initiative 2? Further increases in tuition? At a certain point, increasing tuition ultimately hurts more people than it helps.

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 America. With the obvious need of higher education in modern America, this steady increase in tuition could only have continued because a college degree is not considered a right but rather a privilege.

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 ([email protected]) is a freshman with an undecided major.