So in a previous post I wrote about how I felt many students at my university felt entitled to certain privileges, specifically the academic resource of printing. I was probably a little more harsh than necessary in my analysis, and received some understandable criticism for my opinion in this blog post by a student government colleague of mine. I still sensed a certain amount of entitlement among my peers, but I now think that it was more of a truly disappointed reaction to being uninformed entirely of the changes. I’ve actually heard several students make the comment that if they had received an apologetic email explaining the print quota adjustment and the administration’s rationale behind it, student opinion wouldn’t have been so utterly negative.
As much as having a reduced print quota is troublesome, other schools are facing much harsher situations. The students of the University of California of Santa Cruz have been protesting against the 32% tuition increase approved by the University of California regent panel. Like I said earlier, my college has reacted to budget cuts by drastically cutting down resources and services provided to students, by removing residential computer labs last semester to cutting down our print quota this semester. Student opinion of and trust in the administration fell drastically in all the conversations I had with students on campus. But I think every single one of my peers would choose a removal of computer labs and a reduced print quota over such a drastic tuition increase. USC students are facing very real financial threats to their ability to stay students at USC. The state school kids have a right to an affordable education provided by the state of California, which is probably why they didn’t go to other universities outside their state.
While the system’s president Mark G. Yudof said that “three out of four students would be shielded from the effects of the tuition increase by additional financial aid,” I remain dubious to the realities of that situation. That’s a lot of financial aid for a large school system. If the system is raising tuition so much, what does that mean for the quality of the financial aid given? The other steps the university is taking into effect to cut down on their spending?
I’ll be curious to see how this event unfolds. Considering all the media coverage the protesters received, this story shouldn’t die too soon.
One Woman Academy 