Few students show up at tuition forum

Hundreds of students wandered through the Indiana Memorial Union Wednesday for the summer job fair and blood drive, but few if any knew that in that same building, the IU board of trustees was holding an open forum to discuss raising tuition next year.\nOf the roughly 60 people who attended the meeting, less than 10 were students.\n"I think most students are resolved to the fact they're going to raise tuition," said Charles Shrode, a medical student who came to the meeting from IU-Purdue University Indianapolis. "I realize that they have to increase fees. I'm just looking for some kind of reprieve."\nMedical students at IUPUI are looking at a proposed tuition increase of 11.3 percent, the highest of any graduate or professional program at IU's seven campuses.\n"I find myself thinking every day, what is the advantage of me staying in Indiana when I could go to school in North Carolina, attain residency within a year, pay less tuition and go to a better ranked school?" Shrode asked the board.\nShrode, however, was the only student in attendance at Bloomington who had any kind of comment to make to the board. Via satellite hook-up, the situation was similar with only students from IUPUI and IU Southeast asking any questions.\nFor several weeks, a Web site has been set up where students could send questions to be answered for the forum, but midway through the 45-minute forum, IU's Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Judy Palmer announced that not a single e-mail had been received.\nTrustee Clarence Boone said that there are two ways he views the lack of student participation at the meeting.\n"Apathy is the first thing that comes to mind," he said. "But another way to look at things is that if you analyze our rates, they aren't so bad."\nDuring the meeting, the trustees noted that Indiana and other nearby states are having great budgetary difficulties. Universities in Kentucky for example, have been forced to increase undergraduate tuition by as much as 13 percent.\nBy comparison, the Bloomington campus has proposed increasing out-of-state tuition by 4.9 percent for next year. An increase of 4.9 percent was already approved for in-state students as part of a two-year package.\nBut those figures give little consolation to people like medical student Maria Spector.\n"A lot of students feel helpless," she said. "At no point during the meeting did anyone say, 'I understand what students are going through.'"\nThe board of trustees is expected to vote on the tuition proposals Friday as part of its monthly meeting held at IU Southeast in New Albany.