Sunday, October 30, 2005

Fees climb even faster than tuition for UW students

The journal-sentinel reports on the big increase in fees throughout the UW system.

It lists a myriad of ways that student fees are being used to offset state budget cuts and ends with our old favorite, UW-hater Rob Kreibich complaining about accountability.

It has a nice chart with it as well.

JS Online: 'Stealth tuition' could be pricing students out of UW

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What complicates the fee issue is that students are not single-minded on the matter. They have voted in favor of a $7 MM parking ramp and a multimillion dollar gym, not to mention hiring more advisors and adding onto the union. Our students are pretty much like all the others mentioned in the JS story. It then gets pretty hard to be sorry for them when they complain about high costs -- they are the ones raising their fees. I was glad to see the issue covered by the paper, and I hope it gets more attention.

Lake Winneblogo said...

You make a very good point. Students can be convinced to accept higher fees for amenities.

However, if you remember the bitterness around the new athletic facilities: many charged that a motivated minority of athletes turned out to vote in the new building. It doesn't change the fact that other students were not engaged enough to go vote against it.

Students being willing to pay more for better facilities is not that strange, especially if they are upper-middle class, and their parents are helping you. If a student is struggling to get through school already, these fees may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.