Poor timing for a tuition increase

Yes, this is another article regarding the tuition increase.

As you should have heard by now, the Board of Regents are meeting today and will be voting on a possible 25 percent tuition hike to be implemented by next semester. Thousands of UNLV students will be affected if the Board decides to vote yes. However, thousands of UNLV students don’t care.

Much has been said about the student body’s apathy, mostly by the apathetic ones. Those that we’re trying to reach have already left campus and are on their way home. That just seems to be the way it is.  Regardless of the actions of our unmotivated peers, plenty are fighting to keep tuition at UNLV low.

However, I think a lot of people tend to lose sight of the driving issue behind it all. We all know about the current economic state. We are quick to become aggressive towards the higher-ups, but don’t always acknowledge that the university has also been affected by the poor economy.

Can you really blame them? If you had the opportunity to gather your co-workers and vote to give the company you work for a 25 percent increase in revenue, wouldn’t you? After all, the price is passed down to the customer and that doesn’t really concern the workers.

I wonder whether the impact on tuition is severe enough that it will force students to drop out. If so, wouldn’t losing a significant amount of students counteract the revenue raised from charging remaining students more money? Increasing tuition might also deter future students from applying to UNLV, which will (I believe) prevent UNLV from gaining revenue from them.

I’m not an economics major, so please feel free to correct me if my following scenario is fallacious. Higher costs for education would force students to take out more loans, placing them further in debt after graduation. I hope readers will forgive me for saying so, but I’m not confident in the American public’s ability to pay back its debt.

Regardless of hypothetical scenarios, what should be bothering people more is whether or not UNLV is correctly adjusting its budget to meet current needs. Instead of eliminating professor positions and consequently needing to cut back the number of classes offered, UNLV should have administered pay decreases. That would have allowed professors to keep their jobs, albeit at a lower salary. The administration also needs to keep in mind the goals of the institution. After all, they are hired for the purpose of helping the university be as successful as possible.

Being a state school, UNLV is required to make all its employee’s salaries publicly available. President David B. Ashley earns a base salary of $236,946. One associate vice president earns $184,517. My professors this semester each earn an average of $103,275 (with the exception of one, who is classified as an invited lecturer and earns $30,000). These numbers are base salaries, and do not include merit earnings brought in by outside research.

Surely, UNLV could have considered cutting back these salaries by a few percentage points for the greater good of allowing UNLV to continue to provide the best educational experience possible to its students. If anyone wants to complain about earning $95,000 a year instead of $103,000, I assure them that they have ample money to provide shelter and food to them and their loved ones. If it is not, I suggest they redefine their standards for shelter and food.

UNLV, like the rest of this country, has to understand that in tough economic times it is crucial to understand where you are spending your money. The Board of Regents has to understand that increasing revenue by taking money away from students should not be an option.