How many chances in life are there to experience and expand development of ideology, and gain a vast array of skills and relationships? Few. School provides by far the most advanced and efficient method of expanding one’s own personal growth. That said, purely informational growth does little to carry one into the practical and social realms of life.
Our campus communities are under attack! This has been a product of many years of conservative gnashing and apologist notions of realism or cynicism. In a time when social development is critical and alienation has led many to suicide or violent acts against others, I cannot understand the attacks against organizations. Such attacks here at the University are aimed at reducing the incidental fee, claiming it is too large.
The student incidental fee, at around $200 per term, pays for hundreds of organizations such as Pit Crew, marching band, the Women’s and Men’s centers, the EMU, the recreation center, activist organizations and cultural affiliations. The notion of reducing the I-fee is foolish at best because it would hurt students’ ability to connect in a meaningful and productive way.
Sure, anyone could meet on the street, in classes, at concerts or other venues, but meeting and finding a common cause and engaging in issues forms a more powerful bond. Social participation must naturally accompany intellectual development. Seeing issues and being helpless to make any effect is disempowering and leads to a crippling of self-development.
I, for one, find the complaints around the incidental fee to be trite. When looking at the incidental fee, one must look, too, at the cost of tuition, which is around 10 times higher! Due to budget shortfalls, tuition could be raised by 10 percent each of the next two years, plus an already-instated $150 increase for in-state tuition. If one term costs approximately $2,000, and 20 percent of that is $400, then tuition will be raised by twice the cost of the entire incidental fee per term. The I-fee, which goes to fund programs and services, advocates for students and facilitates opportunities to social, environmental, physical and cultural experiences, is a pittance next to tuition and its upcoming increase.
So to all who would complain about the I-fee: Take a look at tuition and see where your complaints will go further – a $200 fee, with tiny incremental growth of less than 7 percent a year, or a massive $2,000 fee, with a 10 percent growth rate. Hmmm …. you do the math.
If exclusion of students is such a high concern, then tuition increases should give you a heart attack. Yet I have heard scarcely a peep about it. So, no more crying over the little stuff – start caring about the real beast, tuition. Let’s leave groups to continue to promote amazing events, concerts, consortiums, conferences, support networks, community alliances and developmental programs.
In short, let the groups get on with it, and let’s focus on tearing down tuition!
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Focus should be on increase in tuition, not I-fee
Daily Emerald
April 15, 2009
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