By Kimberly Treloar |Staff Writer|
The stress is building in the CSU system.
Tuition and fees continue to rise every year and the number of class offerings and the budget are slashed even further. It appears as if this volcano may be near the point of erupting.
I think increasing tuition and other fees are probably the worst thing that the CSU system can do to students right now. We are already broke and the constant increases will only force many of us to either have to drop out, or work two to three jobs. How will we be able to obtain an education?
According to CSU San Bernardino’s website, as of July 2012 the CSU Board of Trustees approved a tuition increase by 12 percent beginning Fall of 2011. This happened after $650 million was cut from the CSU budget by the state.
CSUSB currently has approximately 17,000 students. Tuition for a full time student is $2,148, plus the cost of a parking pass, books and other school supplies. These 17,000 students’ financial contribution amounts to over $36 million each quarter.
Many are asking why tuition and fees keep increasing, and yet the number of class offerings are slashed.
Would you like to know where most of your money is going?
According to CSU salary schedule for 2011/2012, office staffs, those we deal with on a day to day basis in the admissions and financial aid offices, make a starting salary of $24,000 a year.
Tenured faculty members’ salaries begin at $62,000 for assistant professors and go as high as $173,000 for a full-time professor.
For administrators (many of which work in the SMSU building and help to run the centers and programs on campus) annual salaries begin at $89,000 and go as high as $258,000.
These employees recently received pay increases while other workers will receive theirs in the 2012/2013 school year.
I think we just found our problem.
Nobody is saying that these employees should not be paid well for the work that they do at CSU schools, but perhaps we need to start cutting the pay of many of these workers until the budget crisis has been resolved.
Working for years without a raise is indeed quite difficult and can be stressful and frustrating.
But the office staff has been doing it while some around them continue to get paid increasing amounts of money.
CSU’s site further states, “The increase will allow CSU to continue to provide a quality education and ensurethe academic success of all students”.
From what I see the quality of education is stagnant if not declining, and workers are still getting slighted even more by not getting a share of that increased income.
However, I have seen this scenario before.
It was in a movie where a villain by the name of Prince John was stealing from the poor to give to the rich (namely himself). Now the question we really need to ask ourselves is where the heck is our Robin Hood?
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