Letter to the Editor: Tuition raises affect UW students
Issue date: 2/2/10 Section: Opinion
This year the University Administration is lobbying for full tuition setting authority from the legislature. They use the phrase 'tuition flexibility' as code for an excessive tax increase on students and 'maintaining quality instruction' as a way to do this. However what good does it do to build a Ferrari in a recession when nobody can afford it? Where is the credibility?
The timing of these decisions could not be worse for students. Because University Board of Regents make tuition increase decisions in late June, which is less than a month away from when they will go into affect, students who take Summer Quarter have less than 30 days to come up with the funds necessary to supplement these increases. More often than not these students come up with the money through loans, and the average undergraduate graduates with $16,000 in loan debt.
What we need from our University Administration is commitment to real solutions and ideas that do not dash the hopes and dreams of our students by increasing loan debt through higher tuition. As Elise Anderson from the Washington Times noted about this unsustainable trend, "getting into the school of your dreams is one thing, paying for it another."
We can do better.
Tommy Bauer,
Washington '10
The timing of these decisions could not be worse for students. Because University Board of Regents make tuition increase decisions in late June, which is less than a month away from when they will go into affect, students who take Summer Quarter have less than 30 days to come up with the funds necessary to supplement these increases. More often than not these students come up with the money through loans, and the average undergraduate graduates with $16,000 in loan debt.
What we need from our University Administration is commitment to real solutions and ideas that do not dash the hopes and dreams of our students by increasing loan debt through higher tuition. As Elise Anderson from the Washington Times noted about this unsustainable trend, "getting into the school of your dreams is one thing, paying for it another."
We can do better.
Tommy Bauer,
Washington '10
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