COMMENTARY

Time has come to make a stand on tuition

David Forbes

Tomorrow is the day. The University of North Carolina system Board of Governors will be meeting in Chapel Hill to decide the fate of a series of tuition hikes, including one at Appalachian that would amount to student tuition almost doubling next year.

The question is—will you be there?

For about a month now, The Appalachian has been covering the proposed tuition hike extensively. Since there is no cost whatsoever to pick up the paper, the only way the student body could not be
informed about what’s been going on is by simply being lazy.

However, for those of you who are just tuning in now, here’s a quick refresher course.

The latest tuition hike is $150; ostensibly the funds it generates will be used to help the lowest paid staff through the current state budget crisis. On top of increases that have already been proposed, this brings the total tuition increase to about $919 next year, and this is before the 4.8 percent statewide increase the Board of Governors will probably approve. Dr. Gregory Blimling has refused to say the hike would be rescinded when the budget and salary of staff was back to normal rates, and no plan has been articulated to even make sure the money will be reaching the staff year after year.

The Student Government Association, your elected representatives, have unanimously declared their opposition to this increase. The Faculty Senate has refused to support the tuition hike. William C.
Friday, former president of the University of North Carolina system, has referred to the trend of rapidly increasing tuition as “dangerous.”
Oh yeah, one other thing, the state constitution mandates affordable tuition.

Got all that?

To freshmen and sophomores like myself, this issue is even more important. Not only are the underclassmen the largest percentage of the student body, but if this proposed hike succeeds, and the trend of massive tuition increases continues, we will be the ones paying for it over the next three years.

Now, what can you do about it?

The SGA is organizing a protest for the BOG meeting tomorrow. The more students involved in that protest, the more we can make it clear the student body of Appalachian knows about this issue and will not quietly sit still while our tuition is hiked to absurd levels for dubious reasons.

The SGA is providing transportation to Chapel Hill; anyone interested can meet at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow in the Stadium parking lot.

Talk to your professors if there are tests or labs you would be missing. When I did so this past Friday I found most of them sympathetic and willing to work with me to find ways I could make up the lost time.

When MTV’s “Road Rules” came to this campus, crowds of students, up to 5,000, turned out to scream at the top of their lungs. While I doubt that any issue of real importance at Appalachian could draw the same turnout, even half that number at the BOG meeting tomorrow would make an impression that would be hard to ignore.

If this increase passes, I will no doubt hear students grumbling next year over their tuition prices, students who failed to do or say anything when the issue was still in the process of being decided.
Our generation has been accused countless times of being uninformed and apathetic. Here’s our chance to show otherwise.

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Is tuition hike proposal really about staff?

John Bennett

A logjam of campus-based tuition increase requests will headline the docket of tomorrow’s University of North Carolina system Board of Governors meeting as the body will approve or kill an unprecedented 13 such requests.

However, the BOG will not have the same luxury the Appalachian State University Board of Trustees enjoyed during a conference call vote last month when that body approved the proposal.

Joining the BOG tomorrow on the system’s flagship campus will be student protestors from at least 11 of the 13 system institutions set to ask the board to up tuition next year.

The Appalachian State Student Government Association is putting the finishing touches on plans to join this anti-tuition hike show of force.

Like this publication’s editorial board, SGA has come out against the proposal based on the fact staff salary improvements in North Carolina have always been funded by the General Assembly.

This plan would transfer that responsibility onto the shoulders of students, something former UNC system President William C. Friday recently told The Appalachian should never occur. Friday went on to add the recent trend of rising tuition in North Carolina is both dangerous and unprecedented.

On the surface, this publication and SGA could be misconstrued as greedy and uncompassionate because of our unified front against this proposal.

However, there is no one from either organization who does not feel for the hardworking staff members at this university.

The simple truth is these hardworking individuals who clean laboratories, classrooms and keep the campus running smoothly on a daily basis are the backbone of Appalachian State.

As we go about our daily activities it is easy to look past the vital role these essential workers play. That is a practice we must end.

Just as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks raised the nation’s collective appreciation for firefighters and police officers, if the debate over who should fund staff salary hikes does nothing else it should lead students and faculty to give a tip of the hat to these often overlooked members of the Appalachian State community.

There is no doubt students take staff members for granted, but the cold, hard truth is the Appalachian State University administration and the N.C. General Assembly have overlooked these individuals for years in terms of salary rates.

These staffers have been toeing the poverty line for years, yet the Appalachian State administration chose to sit idly by and allow their collective financial plight to continue.

University officials did not come forward with a plan to boost these salaries via a tuition hike until the institution’s budget had been slashed some 7 percent by state lawmakers.

The timing of this proposal cannot be ignored.

Appalachian State officials have told The Appalachian if and when the state recovers from its current financial situation and is able to fund these salary hikes they do not plan to rescind this $150 tuition hike.

If these much-needed funds are solely meant for salary improvements and the state can one day assume its responsibility and fund those raises, why would this proposed tuition increase remain in the university’s tuition base?

Simple, because the truth beneath the rhetorical surface of this proposal is a growing appearance that this plan has little to do with staff members and their low pay rates.

From my perch, it appears the administration is merely using these hardworking individuals as a means to achieve the greater end of fattening university coffers.

As if that was not vile enough, their grand plan is to use student dollars to achieve that aim.

If the BOG condones this mindset it will indeed be a dark day in the still-unfolding history of Appalachian State University.