Opinion
 

Rising tuition nothing but headache

by Erik Majorwitz

I am deeply troubled by the decision to raise tuition yet again. The Texas Legislature gave colleges a golden opportunity to practically steal from every student's wallet by allowing the universities to set tuition rates themselves. Everyone seems to agree that it is a necessary evil needed to spruce up the university's campuses, hire new teachers and provide scholarship money.

Those for the tuition increase applaud the UH System for taking the lowest increase possible. How thoughtful of them to only bestow an additional 10 percent increase on top of the already 15 percent more students are paying this semester. How about no increases on any fee bill until real improvements are made? 

Having new flowers and trees is quite lovely, but why plop down twisted metal (which some may call art, I call a waste of money) in front of every building on campus? Why consider hiring more professors when half of the ones we currently have are terrible? These are questions that should be addressed instead of having a "charge more for less and see how it goes" approach.

Those in support of the increase say that despite the rising cost of tuition, the University of Houston is one of the most affordable public institutions in Texas. But where does everyone think this "extra" money will come from? Being a commuter school, most students work, so I guess the extra cash flow for the University will be through their second jobs that most will have to take to stay in school. UH won't have to worry about limiting incoming freshman classes, because no one will be able to afford to come here. The increase states that a portion will go to fund need-based scholarships. With these increases, everyone "needs" scholarship money, and you have to be literally dirt poor or be a certain ethnicity in order to receive them. Luckily, I have my G.I. Bill money, but even that won't sustain these blatant rip-offs disguised as necessary for improving UH.

Quite frankly, I'm also tired of the excessive praise for UH President Jay Gogue. Get off the bandwagon! During his six-month administration, we have seen tuition jump up 25 percent. The Texas Legislature deregulated tuition but didn't say the universities had to raise tuition. President Gogue didn't protest when everyone was licking their chops about raising tuition and fee prices. Sounds more like the gouge administration than the Gogue administration. His spin that this is good for the University, or how they whittled down the original proposal from $37 million, makes me ill. Everyone seems to be glowingly positive, from regents to students. Not one seems to be expressing how students like me feel. Greed is good for the administrators but leads to headaches for students who are trying to pursue their degrees without going further into debt.

Erik Majorwitz, a communication sophomore, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.