[su_row][su_column size=”1/2″][su_heading]He said: Raise tuition or risk losing our professors [/su_heading]
David Demic ddemic@uwyo.edu
Yesterday’s “Town Hall Meeting” by ASUW President Brett Kahler was an eye opener to a major problem in our current student body: Ignorance. The meeting, which concerned potential tuition increases, was designed as an opportunity for Kahler to receive input from students. His goal is to communicate this to the Board of Trustees in their upcoming meeting. Specifically, Kahler mentioned that the board could raise the issue of tuition increases and then vote on the item in the same meeting. This would leave no time for deliberations or input from students. But most students do not even know the difference between tuition and student fees (the former pays for your education, the latter for events, athletics, etc.), so it was no surprise that only about a dozen students even showed up. To combat confusion surrounding tuition, here are a few facts about Wyoming, as provided by College Board: Tuition for colleges across the U.S. has been increasing for over three decades. In College Board’s 2012/2013 report, it was stated that 2011-2012 saw an 8.5 percent increase, 2012-2013 a 4.5 percent increase and last yearthere was an average increase of 2.9 percent. Last year was also the lowest increase in tuition within those three decades. Cost of tuition in 1974 was about $2,710 for a four-year public university and $8,893 in 2013. While at first glance that looks like a 300 percent increase, these numbers do not account for inflation. With inflation, tuition in 1974 would have cost us about 12,805 of current dollars. So really, cost of schooling has actually been adjusted for real-world costs and become more affordable over time. Now let’s look at the University of Wyoming specifically. First, UW has the lowest public in-state tuition at $4,404. Second, the State of Wyoming has the second highest fund appropriations per full-time equivalent students at $15,101 per student, as compared to Colorado, which leads the bottom, at $3,312. And third, UW has increased its tuition by 15 percent over the last five years. Since we have the facts, we can discuss implications of tuition increases. If you have not heard, faculty members on campus are currently in what is called a “salary freeze” and have been for at least four years. UW is among the bottom schools for faculty compensation, Kahler said at the meeting. This makes hiring of top-tier instructors difficult, if not impossible. Kahler mentioned examples of faculty that was essentially poached by other institutions, because UW provided them no salary increases. Students must stand behind faculty in this and support a tuition increase. We need to stop whining about how much we have to pay, because we already pay the least possible. Further, we attend UW for the sake of receiving excellent education. But if we stay the course of bleeding the best talent to other schools, we students will receive almost no bang for a very cheap buck. [/su_column]
[su_column size=”1/2″][su_heading]She said: The risk is to big to not follow the money[/su_heading]
Kayla Bish kbish@uwyo.edu
Let me first take a moment to state my disappointment in the student body of UW. Yesterday at noon, ASUW hosted a Tuition Town Hall Meeting in the Union Family Room. This event was for students to find out how tuition raises could impact them, and to converse with their student leaders. This was a chance to get your voice heard, to get your thoughts about the proposed tuition increase out in the open. A total of 15 students were present. Fifteen students care about their tuition and what an increase could mean for their education. Fifteen students took the time to discuss something that matters to all of us. I hope to see more students at the town hall meeting next Tuesday. The whole point of the tuition raise is to give it to the faculty. We want the professors we have to stick around, and for other professors to be drawn to us. We want to better our education, and tuition increases is one way to accomplish that. An out of state engineering student working on her second degree stated her qualms with such a raise. She wanted to focus on the idea of the increase being a percentage. Currently, the tuition for an in state student is $4,404 and for out of state student is $14,124. So if we see a three percent increase in tuition, in state students would see a raise of $132.12 and out of state students would see a raise of $423.72. The differences in these dollar signs have many out of state students balking at the idea of a tuition increase. One point the engineering student made was that the university should consider raising in state tuition more than out of state. To put this into perspective, a ten percent increase in in state tuition would barely surpass the amount of a three percent increase in out of state tuition. Maybe a dollar sign increase would be more equally beneficial than a percentage increase. Another concern from a student standpoint is that we have no way of knowing where our money is going. Is there going to be some sort of way to show students exactly where our money is going? It seems necessary. This school year alone we have seen the university pour money into the old president, the new president, the old football coach and the new football coach. Plus all the new buildings that are popping up on campus. The majority of the student body doesn’t know where this money is coming from, and some are under the impression that their tuition pays for such things. Though we love our faculty and want to have the best education we can acquire, we also don’t want to get screwed in the process. We just want to know where our money is going. [/su_column]
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