Sangren renovation: unnecessary investment

By David Alexander
Western Herald

After much deliberation and planning, the groundbreaking of the new Sangren Hall is under way.

I wish I could be as excited about it as everyone else seems to be.

According to university officials in the most recent report by the Western Herald, it is still unclear as to whether the state of Michigan will come through with the remainder of the project’s funding.

What is clear, however, is who will provide that funding should the state not opt to shell out the remaining $28 million for the project. You guessed it—students.

If government officials decide against coughing up the dough, students could see a 3 percent increase in tuition cost. This increase will be the third in the last two years and will cost full-time undergraduates an extra dollar a semester.

Meanwhile, university administration already bleeds every dollar it can from students’ wallets.

A semester parking pass costs $300 and only allows motorists to park in select spaces throughout campus. Fee cards to the tune of $5, $10 and even $15 get students an alarmingly miniscule amount of extra materials.

Non-refundable course packets do little to enhance most students’ learning. And, let’s not forget Qwizdom clickers—those handy little $40 remotes that often act as attendance sheets and seldom can be reused for other classes.

That’s not even including the textbook racket that sucks in too many students. The bookstores charge an exorbitant price for many books students rarely use, then, at the end of the semester, offers them relatively low sell back value, all because a new edition is coming out.

Now is not the time for another tuition increase.

The administration coos about being the least expensive of the public universities in Michigan. Well, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University don’t only continually rank higher than WMU on several lists of the nation’s top schools, but they both also break several lists of the top 200 schools in the world. A list from which WMU is strangely absent.

If this tuition increase takes effect, the cost per semester will increase from $8,382 to $8,663. Yes, WMU is a top 100 university, but tuition at the University of Michigan, arguably one the best universities in the world, is only $11,659. That’s only 34 percent higher than it will be here.

When you compare the quality of the education students receive at these two universities, 34 percent doesn’t seem like a lot.

I think if we are honest with ourselves as a university, we know the quality of education here at WMU could be much better. It’s not so much that we don’t have good professors. They are just in short supply.

When was the last time you read a book written by a WMU professor?

Too many WMU students pretend to learn and too many professors pretend to teach.  It’s a problem hardly anybody wants to address.

I recognize that universities are businesses and in order to attract exemplary students and professors alike, they need to make their campuses as appealing as possible.  The solution, however, is not to hemorrhage the money of those who keep the university in business on projects it can’t afford and then insult their intelligence by assuming they won’t notice.

Let’s pretend for a moment that mediocrity can be fixed with money.  The way to do it would be to invest in teachers, not in building fancy new buildings even if they do possess all the bells and whistles.

When I look at the rising cost of my tuition what seems like every other semester in tandem with the copious amounts of money I shell out for every little thing on campus, I find myself hoping it will result in better pay for teachers.  But it hasn’t.  Otherwise they wouldn’t have threatened to go on strike last year.

I could see funding a project like the new Sangren Hall if the university won some sort of college lottery and had a bunch of extra money, but it doesn’t.  The country is in a recession.  Things are tighter than they’ve been since the Great Depression.

Now is not the time to art up the campus and treat its students like a bunch of neophytes only impressed by new and shiny toys.

Hiking tuition costs only deters those academically gifted students from opting to attend WMU.  It is no secret that many students here receive financial help from their parents to pay for college.  Why would parents want to send their children away to a school whose tuition is no lower than the one nearby?

Another tuition increase just encourages those who are considering coming to WMU from other areas to stay where they are.

There seems to be the sentiment that this new hall is going to be all things to all people.  It won’t.  The building of this new state-of-the-art structure could burden WMU with a debt that it will pass on to students who will never even set foot in it.

After all, the project won’t see completion until 2012.  What about seniors and juniors who graduate before that?  They derive virtually no benefit from this new hall and still incur the cost of building it when they already pay more in tuition.

In addition to all the ancillary minutia students are forced to pay for, a tuition increase saddles those who can afford it the least with a debt they didn’t ask for.