Tuition Increase

Tuition increases are always depressing because of the hopelessness involved. Unlike other facets of our wondrous capitalistic economy where we can bargain shop or learn to live without, a tuition increase is something that many of us feel as though we must pay. Geography often makes price comparison a moot point, and though education isn’t in the same ballpark of necessities as food, rent or utilities, it’s considered an item needed in order to achieve basic goals in life. You might believe that since ‘the pursuit of happiness’ is an ideal that each American is supposedly entitled to, we wouldn’t allow a predicament that causes us to be depressed or to feel hopeless exist.

However, we do. College is expensive and has been for quite some time, but as a state sponsored institution, it need not. College is expensive not because the economy is bad, as we might be led to believe, but because education is under funded, and it’s under funded because Americans don’t value education.

Americans claim to hold education dear to them but for the most part, as a group, we do not. Americans value the long ball, the cleavage shot and the next big thing. Americans value the sexiest bachelor, the diva and the no-look pass. We value bikinis, steak dinners and SUV’s. We value the big screen, the small cell phone and the funnier e-mail provider. We will vote against library referendums on Tuesday and throw down $50 at a baseball game on Friday night; we will memorize the names, real and fictional, of each ‘Friend’ while remaining unconcerned that we can’t name the last twelve Presidents and our children can’t name the last six; we don’t flinch as an actor, whom we will never meet, is paid more money for one movie than the combined yearly salary of an entire district of school teachers.

Americans don’t value education any more than we value the democratic process or current world affairs. We pay lip service to and invoke the occasional curiosity in all three, but only when it is our own progeny in school, when someone is running for President that we don’t particularly like, or when we’re in the process of blowing people up.

Tuition was increased because money is tight. Tight in the wallets and bank accounts of people who care exponentially less about us than we do them.

Josh Robison

Graduate Student, English