This summer, long after you have selected your classes for the fall, you will be receiving that familiar white envelope with a blue UB in the upper left corner. Time for bills. None of us like it, but those of us who want to come back will have to deal with that envelope. There might be some shocked expressions across the state, however, when students come face to face with the latest State University of New York tuition hike.
Starting next year, all undergraduate students returning to the University at Buffalo may be paying $600 more in tuition. At least, that’s the proposal SUNY chancellor Robert King has presented to the legislature (available to all at www.SUNY.edu). While those students receiving the hike won’t be asked to pay another increase before they graduate, the tuition for freshmen of the future will be multiplied by the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI). The HEPI value for 2004 was 4.6 percent. The plan allows for the increases to go higher than the HEPI at university centers (like UB). The result will be tuition rising for the freshman class every single fall.
The tuition raise in the SUNY system is just one of hundreds of similar stories nationwide. Last year tuition skyrocketed at public schools 10.5 percent according to www.collegeboard.com. And there is no end to these increases in sight. While current UB students will only have to pay a little more, what about the future of education here and elsewhere? How will your siblings, and (try to use your imagination, now) your children, one day manage to pay the bills?
The culprit here is the cost of education, which continues to spiral into the sky with no end in sight. I propose that students start asking a simple question: Why?
When we return to campus in the fall, many things will have changed slightly. Maybe a few new buses will be running, or maybe some new computers will appear in labs. Those are paid for by your comprehensive student fee. Tuition is what you pay to take classes. The goal of this institution (and the goals of SUNY institutions around the state) will not have changed. We’re still coming here to get an education. Why should that mission cost more every single year?
The simplest and most popular answer is inflation. That’s flat out untrue, though. According to a House of Representatives Committee on Education study, the price of college rose 38 percent over a period of ten years after adjusting for inflation. A more plausible answer to funding woes is the rise in enrollment that has resulted from the children of baby-boomers coming of age. The public college system, however, was set up to help everyone without means go to school. That applies to young students now, too.
Well, if the system needs the money badly enough to put further strain on its students, there must be some big plans for that cash, right? Well, that’s hard to say. It’s vague what this money is earmarked for. The official SUNY news release first cites rising energy costs and mandatory salary increases as chief reasons for the hike. The article later states “Under the SUNY Tuition Guarantee, the state would fund growth in costs such as salary increases and other mandated costs and energy” while the student tuition would go towards “enhancements to academic quality.” It seems like even SUNY can’t figure where this money is supposed to go.
I’m not saying that SUNY isn’t in dire straits, or that they are trying to rob us. However, I don’t think that I am alone when I wonder where exactly the slew of money that will result from these raises will go. To the students here at UB, I say stand up for your money! You are buying a service here at UB, and you have a right to know what the SUNY system is up to with your cash. And to SUNY and the higher education system as a whole I say this: Our pockets are only so deep.
20 floors below sea level, from a bunker,
Charles Wiff
