In this space last week, we reiterated that a Wesleyan education is among the most expensive in the nation. This past weekend, the Board of Trustees approved a five percent increase in tuition for the 2006-2007 academic year, bringing tuition to $34,630. With room and board costs included, the base cost for a student will be at least $44,384…and that’s not including all the textbooks, white boards, and Film Series tickets another year at college requires.
While it is alarming that a five percent tuition increase per year is becoming the norm, it is heartening to see that the University is at least trying to make an effort to cut costs. Project $AVE, a new initiative to identity and eliminate unnecessary University costs, launched last week. Given the cost of a Wesleyan education, it is not altogether surprising that nearly 100 suggestions were submitted within the first few days,
In our last editorial, we criticized ResLife’s decision-making process for not including sufficient student input. The growing backlash against the no-pets-but-fish-in-housing clause proves that ResLife could have done more to gauge student opinion before the policy was added to a housing contract that students have no choice but to accept. Much like ResLife’s housing contract, students basically have no choice but to accept the University’s tuition bill. While Project $AVE may not give students a voice in how our money is being spent, at least it gives us an opportunity to point out institutional waste.
The University says that energy costs will probably amount to a million dollars more than last year. Hopefully student suggestions will help lower University costs, and thus lower our tuition costs, in the future. Some ideas include turning off unnecessary 24-hour lights, and heating residences more efficiently. As anyone living in a woodframe house or dormitory can attest to, the University should move quickly on conserving energy to save money. More energy-efficient, properly insulated senior prototype houses should be erected, the heating efficiency of woodframe houses should be improved, and heating in the dormitories should be controlled by residents and distributed more evenly.
Project $AVE makes sense because students and staff see and experience waste firsthand, not administrators on College Row. Perhaps the program can serve as a model for future student input in administrative decision-making. As Wespeaks show, Wesleyan students always have something to say.
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