Fellow Students of MSU:
Can we not agree that a university is an institution where growth and development should be the main focus? A place designed to provide individuals like us with “sound” minds, guided by the hope that we might one day build stronger communities in the wake of our ascent from higher education. But how can this be accomplished when the blight of financial slavery becomes our inception of life after study?
For starters, university funding is partly paid for by “independent appropriations,” or what is more commonly known as privatization. This means businesses offer financial support, but also expect a considerable amount of return profit for their investments, such as research and innovations. These “appropriations” are mixed with state funding, but rounding this off is the grotesquely huge amount of student tuition costs at the schools helm. To put this into perspective, it would be satisfactory to note that universities in Michigan rank 47th when it comes to state government funding in the United States. This is an indication that students in our state may have a lot more at stake in this equation. This prompts the question of who really then is to blame for rising tuition costs?
To deepen this perspective, students must be aware that the amount of financial support has slipped from 77 percent state funded in 1960 to 27 percent currently. Hence, universities have no choice but to drive up tuition rates for their students. This is conceptualized in academia as keeping up to date on the kinds of resources needed to achieve sustainability. The education process must remain top notch, providing the student with a relevancy in our modern age. One cannot refute any of this logic. However, the alarming truth is that the resources at MSU are being cut. In fact, the MSU budget overview reports that “15 undergraduate programs and several graduate-level programs have been discontinued” since 2011, and due to financial constraints MSU “will continue to review programs and make necessary changes over time.” Might this be the wrong approach, perceiving sustainability as quantity of finances over quality of thought, while universities continue to deem it a necessary sacrifice in order to cope with the demands of modernization? To put it simply, we are paying more for less, something like 400 percent more since our parents were in college.
The bottom line is that students are footing most of the bill, framing the issue as one that is not geared toward the enhancement of the individual, but instead on their exploitation. This is evident in the fact that we continue to pay an exponential amount of expenses that add up over time, things like parking, printing, books and the list goes on. So, when is the focus going to be centered on our enrichment, and not the fiscal acquisition of the institution? And, what are the other expenses tied to this system? Perhaps not getting a well-rounded education. Perhaps that we might lose our minds in the process, directly affecting how we conduct ourselves in regards to the larger community.
Not to mention, the looming debt hanging over our heads in the aftermath often goes unpaid due to a lack of jobs, and this becomes an economic burden to our community. For example, I have a sister who graduated from MSU some years ago, and like many others in her position — 53.6 percent of those with bachelor’s degrees to be exact — she cannot for the life of her find adequate work in her particular area of expertise. Needless to say, she can barely pay back the interest that is slowly accruing on her student debt.
What, then, is the solution? Unfortunately ,there may be no definitive answer. All I know is tuition costs have been rising with fierce speed since our country’s financial markets were deregulated in the mid-1970s and early 80s. They have been rising since companies started outsourcing products and labor, weakening the country’s manufacturing base, and resulting in the erosion of the middle class (note: the richest 400 people in America now make more than over half the country’s income put together). All of this is a vicious cycle of problematic circumstances, one in which we all must deal with eventually.
In the end, we must recognize that there is a social contract at play here. One that says we as students and citizens should be given the means to better ourselves without entrepreneurial enterprises impeding on our lives. Maybe that means a place like MSU should limit the privatization of its institution, and instead vie for more capital from the state government. Maybe as students we should put more pressure on the administrations to do just that, more so than we already have or are. Maybe this means more taxes for the wealthy to combat the issue, necessary sacrifices in order to make equitable education possible. It is no doubt that some risks have to be taken, that reforms must be made, if only to preserve what’s left of a system that slowly kills what it needs to survive, its lifeblood — us.
Derek Vaive
Secondary education and english literature senior
vaiveder@msu.edu
