Letter to the editor: Taxes Not the Solution to University’s Financial Problems

President Dunn faces difficult choices in the near future on how to fund the university, but his recent appeal to the state for more tax dollars should be met by fierce resistance not only from the state but by the student body as well.
His goals are noble, to keep the university we love afloat, but desperate economic times call for drastic action, and it is irresponsible to coerce more money from the already hurting families of Michigan through taxation while the university makes little in the way of budget cuts.

A look at the 2003-04 and 2008-09 budgets shows an increase in revenue and spending from $450 million per year to $541 million per year, while enrollment dropped from 24,485 students to 21,932 in the same period.  This is an increase of nearly $1300 per student per year.

Barring a huge windfall of wealth in our state, the university will collapse under this unsustainable policy unless it takes a more realistic approach to it’s finances; neither the student nor the taxpayer can keep up with the current policy. If this is the case, and through any sensible mathematic calculation it should be, the only remedy is to cut spending.
While the $14 million deficit Dr. Dunn outlined is a significant amount of money, dropping annual expenditures from $541 million per year to $527 million per year still leaves the university with a budget $77 million more than it was just five years ago and doesn’t hurt the working families of Michigan in the process.  I urge everyone to say no to any appeals for more funding through taxation.
—David Bell
WMU student

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=4383

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Feb 26 2009. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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