Last week’s national protests against the sky-rocketing cost of higher education should be a wake-up call to students on this campus. Unlike our peers at UW-Milwaukee, students here staged no major demonstration in solidarity with our colleagues across the country. As students in Milwaukee were aggressively harassed by campus and city police for an innocuous attempt to address their chancellor in person, students here went to class largely oblivious of the unrest and turmoil enveloping campuses from NYU to UCLA.

It goes without saying that such demonstrable apathy is regrettable, especially when UW-Madison students are subjected to many of the same forces pushing higher education out of reach for an increasing number of willing and able students who are unable to cover the rising costs.

Make no mistake about it, this university, like most others across the country, has no vested interest in making education affordable and accessible to the widest spectrum of young people. As long as a sufficient number of well-to-do out-of-state students attend and UW is able to maximize revenue, there is no reason to make sacrifices or do any hard work to ensure lower income students are able to matriculate.

Need proof of this attitude? Look no further than the UW administration’s backhanded way of loading the burden of capital improvement on students. In its drive to attract lucrative out-of-state scholars and athletes, the administration is constantly promoting projects to dress-up campus. These extravagancies rarely have anything to do with strengthening the fundamentals of a good education.

Perhaps the most glaring example of the university administration taking advantage of students to further its own ends came in the form of last decade’s campaign to renovate Union South on the student dime. For those of us who remember Union South before it became a hole in the ground, it was pretty obvious the building served its function well. At the very least, it was not crying for a replacement.

That view was repeatedly expressed by the student body, which in 2003 and 2005 rejected a referendum to finance a new Union South by raising segregated fees by nearly $200.

The initiative was again put before students in 2006. Perhaps after two “no” votes, students had become complacent, confident the initiative lacked the necessary support. In any case, the third time proved the charm, and the segregated fee hike passed with a grossly underwhelming show of support — turnout was a meager 4 percent.

In stunningly undemocratic fashion, it came to pass that fewer than 1,500 people locked hundreds of thousands of students into paying an extra $100 each semester until 2040.

Which brings me to March 2010, one month before students will be asked to approve yet another segregated fee hike to fund an extracurricular trophy piece for the administration. The NAT UP 2010 campaign aims to raise segregated fees by about $100 per year for the next 30 years. Predictably, proponents of the project have done very little to solicit funds from private donors, the athletic department or any source outside of students. After all, there is little reason to do any hard work fundraising when extracting the funds from students could resolve their dilemma with minimal effort.

If one gives the referendum a critical look, a number of good reasons to vote it down become apparent. Most importantly, the student body can no longer afford to raise segregated fees every time the administration, with the help of a small interest group, wants to renovate facilities.

Although $100 dollars might not seem like much by itself, in the context of a moribund economy, ever-increasing tuition and segregated fees, one more hike is simply unconscionable.

Students are the best, if not the only, advocates for themselves; if we don’t defend our interests, no one else will do the work for us. The administration needs to be held accountable. What is more important? Making education affordable and inspiring for the greatest number of people, or having flashy recreational facilities?

Even if you are more concerned with Brothers’ date with the wrecking ball and working-out than affordable education, voting “yes” still doesn’t make sense. If the referendum passes, the Nat will be closed for two years, putting a heavier load on the SERF and the Shell. Consequently, should the referendum succeed, it would be considerably more difficult to exercise indoors in university facilities for the better half of one’s college career.

The question boils down to this: Do you want to take another step in putting college out of reach for middle and lower class students, or do you want to take a principled stand against tuition hikes?

Like the thousands of students across the country who took to the streets last week in defense of their right to an education, I hope most students on this campus choose the latter. As Peter Rickman of the Teacher Assistants’ Association, one group leading efforts against the hike, puts it: “We can’t afford to use seg. fees as a backdoor tuition hike once again, especially for a $50 million gym at a time when UW is cutting back on the core education function of our university.”

He’s right; this spring it’s in our best interest to vote Nat Up down.

Sam Stevenson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in public health.