By Matt Mattingly
In an interview regarding the new university budget, U of L President James Ramsey said, “We could have socked it to the students and we didn’t.” This year’s university finances were surely a challenge, structured amidst orders from Governor Fletcher to cut more than $7 million in 2005. “There were a lot of things we needed to do in this budget,” Ramsey said.
I couldn’t agree more.
Ramsey maintains that academics are vital, even during the budget crisis facing the university. While an encouraging thing to say, I would be more impressed by specific goals.
New class offerings for the fall, for example. Ask any Liberal Arts major how difficult it is to register for the required 500-level Humanities courses, and you’ll see how fundamental it is to offer a substantial array of course sections and times. No matter the major, every student benefits from more choices — we aren’t all fortunate enough to be upperclassmen come registration time.
Bottom line, students need assistance at the ground level, and we’re not getting it. Meanwhile, as tuition continually increases, the Stafford Loan amounts remain the same. It looks like books are totally out-of-pocket these days.
Although U of L faculty and administration will deflect criticisms of the tuition hike by arguing that raising fees is necessary to offset education cuts of the Fletcher administration, this belt-tightening isn’t happening everywhere. Students pinch pennies while the Board of Trustees plans to erect a new baseball facility, raze the Algood Food property, and erect a Health Sciences Research facility.
True, allocating money for research facilities is vital to the university’s long-term growth; U of L needs the grant and contract monies that come from a heightened reputation for research. However, is this time of budget crisis the time to focus on establishing our reputation as a premier research institution?
Ultimately, most reasonable students understand, or at least accept, the harsh realities of university financing. If only as a consequence of inflation, tuition will never stop rising. But when you take our money, use at least some of it for our benefit, and not all for the class of 2014.
Moreover, U of L has already forged its reputation among elite schools by offering a quality education that is comparably affordable. Dr. Ramsey is quick to boast that the 2005 tuition increase of 9.7 percent ties U of L with Kentucky State University for the state’s lowest percentage changes, but of eight public colleges in Kentucky, only UK has a higher resident tuition.
Dr. Ramsey, our provost and the Board of Trustees need to realize that tuition increases make a college education difficult to attain for many of us. What may seem like small increases in the context of the tens of millions of dollars that comprise the university budget are back-breaking to the average student, who works for $7 an hour.
However grand their plans for the future, the board mustn’t overlook that in the short-term, it is students, and not research, that keep a college running.
Matt Mattingly is a student in the College of Arts and Sciences, and a columnist for The Louisville Cardinal. E-mail him atopinion@louisvillecardinal.com
