Tuition increases treat students like sheep
Pigs and Pearls
Fellow students, stop sunbathing on the Quad for a moment and realize
that the JMU Board of Visitors has entered the sheep-shearing business
— we’re being fleeced as we speak. Friday’s tuition increase
of 8.9 percent for in-state students demonstrates that the BOV does not
consider students as clients to be served, but as helpless lambs to be
exploited.
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said, "Nothing is so admirable
in politics as a short memory." The truth of that statement is that
nothing is so admired by politicians as a public with a short memory.
The BOV made a bet Friday that no one remembers the past and therefore
would grudgingly accept this new wave of tuition increases.
Never fear, the senior is here! JMU’s history of producing "super"
seniors has proven true once again, and I will return to JMU in the fall
for my fifth and — dear God please — final year. Unfortunately,
the tuition bill I will receive will be dramatically different than the
one I received when I first stepped on campus as a freshman.
When I started at JMU in fall 2001, in-state tuition totaled $2,047 per
semester. Non-Virginians paid $5,303 per semester. The classes I took
in the summer of 2002 cost me $56 per credit hour. My friends from New
Jersey paid $274 per credit hour.
I imagine that when the BOV announced Friday’s 8.9 percent tuition
increase, most students – if they knew about it – dismissed
it. After all, we spend 11 percent on sales tax every time we buy a pizza
in Harrisonburg, so what’s 8.9 percent?
Sit at the feet of the senior, for you have much to learn.
This summer I will pay $118 per credit hour to take summer classes and
out-of-state students will pay $398 per credit hour. For me, that’s
a 110 percent increase over three years and a 45 percent increase for
non-Virginian students.
In the fall, I will pay $2,943 per semester and out-of-state students
will pay $7,661 per semester. Those figures mean I will pay nearly $2,000
more to attend JMU in 2005-2006 than I did in 2001-2002. Students from
outside the commonwealth will spend nearly $5,000 more next year than
they did four years ago.
I’m not a math major, so it took me a few moments to make the calculations,
but I figure that in-state and out-of-state students have suffered through
a 44 percent increase in tuition in only four years. Visit the University
Business Office Web site and see for yourself.
Let me add even more perspective. According to the U.S. Labor Department’s
Bureau of Labor Statistics, average weekly earnings for production or
non-supervisory workers on private payrolls have increased about $40,
from $493.20 in 2001 to a preliminary figure of $534.33 in March 2005.
If someone works 50 weeks a year, that increase equals — wow, what
a coincidence — $2,000.
What these figures tell me is that — according to the averages —
the average JMU student from Virginia has been unable to save any extra
money in four years; tuition increases have eaten the rise in wages. The
non-Virginian student actually has gone in the hole to the tune of $3,000
a year.
Now I have made some generalizations in this column, yes. I admit that.
But the fact remains that tuition has risen 44 percent in four years while
the average weekly wage has risen 8 percent. If tuition had merely risen
by the rate of inflation, my tuition per semester would equal $2,212.58,
not $2,943.
Students should demand that tuition rates remain fixed for the duration
of their time at JMU. The tuition rate with which you enter should be
the tuition rate with which you leave. Maybe our new SGA administration
can work on this instead of counting how many posters each candidate put
up.
Malcom X said, "History is a people’s memory, and without a
memory, man is demoted to the lower animals." JMU students can either
learn their history and stand up for frozen tuition rates, or they can
line up to be sheared by the BOV.
Baa baa young sheep, have you any wool? No sir, no sir, they fleeced
me at my school.
Adam M. Sharp is a senior history major.
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