I have a problem with the university. I don’t think I am getting my money’s worth. Every student on the campus has a right to a fair and equal education, commensurate with the cost of tuition.
As a student in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, I can’t help but compare my educational experience to that of other students – for example, those in the engineering school. Although undergraduate tuition is the same for all students, vast inequalities exist between different colleges.
Lots of people dismiss this as inevitable, and point out the fact that the engineering and business schools bring in big money for the university through alumni donations and research grants .
However, this is only half the case. The university is largely paid for through state-supported funding. There is a tremendous difference in how these funds are distributed among academic departments. The state-supported funding per credit hour in the engineering school is more than three times the funding per credit hour in BSOS and College of Arts and Humanities. In effect, my tuition dollars are subsidizing the education of students in the expensive majors.
Nariman Farvardin, university provost, defends this spending gap by likening it to student fees. He argues, “In the grand scheme of things, yes, it is justified. For example, is it just to pay an athletics fee, but never go to any games? The answer is no, it is not. But when you look at our objective, to be a good university that provides a high-quality education to a lot of students, then yes, it is just.”
Dr. Farvardin fails to consider that students have a choice of whether to go to games or not. However, the process of “choosing” a major is not the same.
Edward Montgomery, dean of BSOS, echoes this point. He says, “What’s different here is you chose to be a BSOS student, and you didn’t think the cost of being a BSOS student was that you had to make the kid in engineering get a better education. … Yeah, you could say, ‘Well if you didn’t want that you should have signed up to an engineering major,’ but is that really the signal the campus wants to send?” I couldn’t agree more.
I realize that some departments, including the sciences, need more funding for expensive labs and equipment. However, the current gap is too large, and manifests itself in larger class sizes. In the engineering school, the average class size is 28. In BSOS, it is 67, because there isn’t enough money to provide for a greater number of professors and classes. Having more students greatly reduces the opportunity for a close student-professor relationship.
The university is, and should be, a place for students to explore their interests. I just want my money’s worth.
Andrew Hallowell is a junior government and politics major. He can be reached at hallowelldbk@gmail.com.
