After a three-day long meeting, the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees emerged to announce that they were increasing tuition costs by five percent for next semester. Now, I can imagine this news has literally stopped you in your tracks as your heart sinks down to your gut and you begin to wonder if life as a ditch-digger would really be all that bad. Fret no longer, intrepid reader! I’m here to tell you not to panic because annual tuition increases are actually a good thing. If they’re utilized properly, that is.
Along with the tuition increase, the Board is promising an increase in education here at UW. I’m not sure how that’s going to work since most of this tuition increase is going into the salaries of professors and staff (motivation perhaps?), but I’m not here to argue the division of monetary gains within an educational organization. That’s a job for someone whose mathematical skills, unlike mine, are greater than that of a rhesus monkey. I’m here to remind you to stay rational and keep in mind that what the school takes, it needs to give back in equal quantity.
We give this school a lot of our money and if its Board of Trustees says it’s going to increase the standard of education around here with a tuition increase for next semester, then we better start seeing some results next semester. And if we don’t, and the University has effectively given us an extra charge for absolutely nothing, then they don’t deserve our money and we need to go seek educational services elsewhere. End of story.
However, there is a flip side to this story. Comparatively speaking, the cost of going to the University of Wyoming against other universities is considerably cheaper. So even if there is a tuition increase, at least they’re being as terrible as other universities. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” I suppose.
Okay, that was a little harsh. Especially considering that there was a five percent tuition increase last March and I know the brass has definitely been trying a lot harder this semester, if nothing else.
The moral of the story here is to not panic and get angry about stuff that isn’t worth the bile. A five-dollar increase for resident students isn’t anything to pout about. Maybe that twenty-two dollar increase for non-resident students is upsetting, but you’ll have to decide if your money is worth the education that the University of Wyoming provides. Keep calm and study on, fellow students.
