Parties discuss books, tuition

Each IUSA ticket will pitch its plan for the student body in tonight's election debate, and the price of books and tuition are hot topics.\nTickets Big Red, Hoosier Party, Fusion and Crimson will each attempt to convince students their solution is best.\nBig Red Vice Presidential Candidate senior Angel Rivera vowed to lobby the statehouse in order to freeze tuition rates and secure more government funding.\n"Tuition is going up at an uncontrolled rate," he said of the yearly price jumps. "We're not getting a better education every term. I think IU is an excellent academic institution, but I don't see why I have to pay so much more than what I paid two years ago."\nRivera said his administration would send an IUSA representative to the Bloomington Faculty Council and IU Board of Trustees meetings to encourage more efficient use of IU's budget.\nBig Red Presidential Candidate junior Katie Diggins said her party would call upon IU to increase the amount of scholarship money proportional to tuition rates.\nTo further ease the semesterly strain on students' checkbooks, Rivera said the ticket would require professors to post their course packets online.\nThe Hoosier Party will lobby alongside students and Hoosiers for Higher Education to control tuition increases, said Presidential Candidate senior, Aaron Radez. Radez also critiqued the current administration's efforts to rally students behind the lobbying organization.\n"The present administration is not effective because they haven't called me yet," he said. "If I don't know about this, they're not being effective."\nThe ticket also echoed Big Red's support of online course packets.\nWhile Fusion supports the online course packets, Presidential Candidate senior Dan Shapiro said his ticket will develop existing alternatives to bookstores.\n"What we promise first is to get the book exchange and auction going," he said of www.buyiu.com, a textbook auction Web site similar to eBay, and www.iuboard.com.\nShapiro said his party will collaborate with other student groups to lobby for tax-free textbooks and more state funding for higher education. He said he believes additional state aid would reduce tuition hikes.\n"We're proposing a very strong legislative relations department that works with other universities to lobby constantly to the state," Shapiro said.\nVice Presidential Candidate junior Scott Norman said the Crimson incumbents would introduce competition to local bookstores.\n"As an organization, we want to hold them accountable," he said. "If there is another outlet (where) students can get books for cheaper, that's something we want to push. If people start looking elsewhere, the bookstores on campus are going to have to make ends meet."\nIf re-elected, members of Crimson would follow up on their www.buyiu.com project.\nCrimson also would take steps to ensure reasonable tuition increases, Norman said.\n"We need to have a stronger presence up at the capitol," he said. "We need to be up in (Indianapolis) talking with the Department of Education and working with them to make sure IU gets the funding it needs."\nNorman also stressed the need to maintain federal funding by remaining in compliance with government regulations.\nTonight's debate will take place at 8 p.m. in the State Room East in the Indiana Memorial Union. Students are welcome to attend.\n-- Contact staff writer Mike McElroy at mmcelroy@indiana.edu.