Guest column: Standing up for students

As leaders in the Student Government Association, we understand that money is tight in today's tough economy, and we appreciate the tuition freeze. But a tuition freeze is not really a tuition freeze when students are still paying more money for services and receiving less. Instead of instituting new student fees in light of stagnant tuition dollars, administrators should first look at cost-cutting measures before taking the easy way out and taxing students.

Unfortunately, instead of exhausting every possible resource to reduce expenses, they opted to try to take advantage of the student body by increasing mandatory fees without proper student input. The system is designed so students are an easy target for exploitation. Of the 17 members of the Board of Regents, the body that provides final approval for the student fees, only one is a student.

In fact, at each step, every mandatory fee advisory committee to university President Dan Mote is composed of a majority of faculty or is comprised entirely of faculty, limiting student voice. Students deserve an equal vote in the assignment of mandatory fees, because they are paid for by students and designed to benefit students.

While we agree that classroom improvements and library upgrades need funding, we firmly believe this funding should not be covered by our mandatory student fees, an idea that had never been discussed before this year.

But that's not the most unfortunate development. As we all know, once fees are implemented, they do not disappear, even in good economic times. A dangerous precedent may be set: a precedent that it is OK for student fees to pay for these kinds of expenses. These are not new arguments; we have made them, and will continue to make them, to the university administration and state leaders.

The administration is hearing students, but we implore them to listen and act upon what they hear. All too often, administrators forget they are here to serve the students. We won't let them forget this.

They took a positive first step by announcing that they will reconvene the Committee for the Review of Student Fees to reconsider the new fees. But after participating in Tuesday's budget town hall meeting, we urge administrators to be more forthcoming. We don't ask this just for us; we ask that the administration be open and transparent to all 26,000 undergraduate students who have put their faith and money in this institution.

At the town hall, we continually pressed the administration, inquiring about topics including how to access the University's budget and how the campus decision-making process is structured. Yet we received a variety of poor responses, which could be seen as veiled and patronizing.

We were not satisfied with these vague statements on the topics of continued funding for the Engaged university or the administrators' other non-answer responses, and we will continue to press them on these issues at every step of the process. 

The university prides itself on being a quality institution that provides accessibility to Maryland's citizens. But when accessibility is ignored to make up for a lack of tuition revenue, that's when we need to stand up and say no.

In a speech on Sept. 8, President Barack Obama urged us as students to take responsibility for our own education. The SGA has been doing just that, and will continue to do that when the Committee for the Review of Student Fees reconvenes. We challenge our university administrators and state leaders to do the same.

Until they start listening to student voices, we will make sure our voices are too loud to be ignored.

The authors are leaders of the Student Government Association who sit on the Committee for the Review of Student Fees. They can be reached at SGAcommunications at gmail dot com.