Students before profit
Written by Jessica Thomas, Feb 29, 2012, 0 Comments
As I was returning to my car on Tuesday evening, I noticed the familiar orange envelope. It protruded from my windshield like the corpse of a dead albatross that I read about in my literature courses. I had received another parking ticket for the second time in two days.
Since I transferred to the St. Petersburg campus, I have been able to get away with parking in the visitors’ spaces. I have never, not once, purchased a parking permit since I arrived here. Now, I will have to in order to be left in peace.
One would think that with the amount of tuition we have to pay per semester, parking permits should be included in our fees. But they are not, and with the cumbersome task of applying for the FAFSA and loans, we already have to pay $20,000 dollars by the time we graduate.
While the government extends financial aide to help students who can’t afford paying for four years out of pocket, the colleges and universities are racking up the dollars with a little something called differential tuition.
According to a recent news feed in CityTownInfo.com, tuition rates vary depending on year of enrollment, major, or academic department. example, there are $75 of fees for engineering courses at the University of Maine and $460 in nursing program fees at the University of Kentucky. These were a 9.4 and 10.7 percent increase respectively over in-state tuition fees.
The majors which are most affected by the increases are engineering, nursing and business.
Differential tuition began in 1980 due to inadequate funding, increasing enrollments, and higher education expenses.
Now, with the Florida Senate subtracting $45 million from USF Tampa and $1 to $2 million from the regional campuses, tuition will increase two-fold.
Florida lawmakers declined a bill that would deter them from influencing, creating, or proposing bills that would provide special or private benefits for their friends, families, co-workers, and themselves, according to a recent Tampa Bay Times article.
I declare war.
I declare war upon the Florida Legislature, which turns blind eyes and ears to the students who rally to make things better. I declare war upon the unfair and unequal policies of differential tuition, which will impoverish one student more than another just because they have a particular major. I declare war upon the Florida senators who cut our funds to financially benefit themselves.
Rally, protest, perform sit-ins—do whatever you can to peacefully gain our lawmakers’ attentions.
Will you take a stand against unfair legislation and decisions? Will you fight with me to save your professors’ jobs and student organizations? Will you make a stand with me to prove that that we are not made of money?
