Now that the rush to register for Spring classes has come to an end, it’s time for the University to begin sending out billing statements. Isn’t it funny how bills go out in a few days, but when it comes to going through the paperwork of getting checks out to students who are owed money it takes weeks, even months? The same goes for late fees; those are slapped on faster than you can say “late fee,” but when your statement has a negative balance, no one knows anything about it.
Luckily (depending on your definition of lucky) for us, the University has yet to pull a mid-year tuition hike on us. Yes, tuition goes up every year, but at least it doesn’t go up every semester. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for State University of New York (SUNY) students.
On Tuesday, the SUNY Board of Trustees decided to hike in-state undergraduate tuition by $310 in January, another $310 in September and institute smaller annual increases in each of the following three years, said an article in Newsday.
The article also says that because of the recent decline in the economy there has been a $210 million budget cut on SUNY campuses all over the state, leading to fewer course offerings.
So to clarify: less courses, more money. Hmm, that makes a whole lot of non-sense. If state schools can raise tuition in the middle of the year, then a private University like this one can raise tuition every month if it really wants.
The economy isn’t just in a downward spiral for businesses; it’s hurting most everyone. So raising tuition doesn’t mean people are actually going to be able to pay it-especially when it’s an “oh by the way, you owe us x amount more starting in a month.”
Hopefully the University does not follow in the footsteps of the SUNY schools. Students here already pay much more in tuition than students at state schools.
It makes so much more sense to raise tuition gradually than to slap an increase of more than $300 on students. Let them know now and then raise tuition next year by $600 instead. It seems like there is no difference between an increase now and a greater increase later because in the end the same amount has to be paid, but this way students have time to plan and figure out where they are going to get this extra money. No one has $300 to pull out of their back pocket and hand over, and if you do, then that’s great, you can pay now.
Students at SUNY Stony Brook protested the tuition hike on Wednesday, showing that they are ready to use their power to change decisions. Hopefully they can make some sort of difference because there is no good reason that there should be a sudden tuition increase in the middle of the school year.