Yesterday saw President Jackson’s announcement—both in the Student Senate meeting and in an e-mail sent to the entire campus—of the tuition and cost of attendance increases for next year. Like always, the new figures represented a sizable increase in expenses for students, but for this upcoming year, the increase is approximately 7.1 percent—high even by RPI standards.
We find this trend worrisome, to say the least. It’s a clear indication we are running short on funds and that we need to cut our losses somehow. How, then, can an increase of this magnitude be justified when we, as an Institute, are currently undergoing a very substantial (and expensive) project—EMPAC. We also just finished one, the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, and we’re about to start another one, the East Campus Athletic Village. These are projects that not only cost millions of dollars that the Institute apparently cannot spare, but also may not go hand-in-hand with our core values in the sciences. We shouldn’t be trying so hard to make students well-rounded and then scare them away because of the cost.
However, these large sums of money have not been allocated to provide upperclassmen with increased funding proportional to the climb in proposed costs. Not only is the base rate for being a Rensselaer student increasing, but we will see similar jumps in the costs of on-campus living and meal plans. These changes and lack of financial support to accompany them will make it very difficult for the less-fortunate students to pay not only for their academics, but also for meals and a place to live.
Though the Board of Trustees has already approved the budget and this message, therefore, cannot possibly reach its members in time, we reach out to them now and the entire student body to evaluate these numbers and understand how detrimental this could be. In an era when Rensselaer’s enrollment numbers are hitting an all-time high, it is especially important now to keep costs on par with other universities of our caliber. However, careless spending on projects that current students won’t even get to enjoy or see finished is not justified if in turn our tuition costs go up a steep 7.1 percent.
