Tuition acceleration

Money. Moola. Cashola. Dinero. Dough. No matter what you call it, it sucks not to have any. And not having money may soon be the norm for IU students -- more so than it is now. \nLast week, Interim Provost Michael McRobbie announced that the cost of an IU education could increase at a faster rate that previously projected. But before the trustees and administration raise tuition another arm and leg, they need to consider if the inflated costs of attending IU will outweigh the benefits of Hoosierdom.\nOne of the main reasons cited by McRobbie for the increase is the hope of attracting and retaining more top-tier professors. This seems legitimate enough. Despite the fact that we would like everything to be free (and trust us, we do), we realize professors aren't cheap. Not only does IU have to pay their salaries, but it also has to provide top-level research facilities for them. As the old saying goes, a researching professor is a happy professor, and we want them to stay happy -- not just for the sake of our grades, but also for the overall quality of our education.\nIn the process of jumping through hoops to attract and retain faculty members who are at the top of their fields, though, IU must remember why the faculty are here to begin with: the students (right?). And it is the students who will be footing the bill for this latest increase. \nNow, we understand that higher education's share of the state budget has been decreasing, reducing the amount that IU gets per student and forcing the University to transfer the cost to individual tuitions. And we know that while the proposed increase may prove an annoyance to middle and upper income students, it shouldn't hurt those from lower income families. (In fact, according to Adam Herbert's Sept. 17 guest column for the Indianapolis Star, "the average out-of-pocket cost to attend IUB for the lowest-income Hoosier students has fallen by $1,943 since 2004"). \nHowever, all this said, more accountability would be nice. We'd like to make sure that tuition's increasing increases are, indeed, going to attracting the best professors possible rather than being frittered away on academic fads or other superficial expenses. Would it be possible to specially earmark these funds for their stated purpose? Build new facilities that enable professors to research their hearts' content and attract new professors to the University. Do this and we will put up with the tuition increases -- even though we aren't thrilled about them. \nWe will wince as we have to work overtime to make up those extra bursar payments, and we will gripe about the extra expense. But as long as penny pinching today will guarantee a quality education that will put us ahead later, we say go for it. And one day, when we are sitting on the sunny shores of our personally owned tropical paradises, sipping our piña coladas, we will think back to our days at IU and say, "It was worth it"