On March 30, President Fred Lawrence sent an email to the Brandeis community outlining a 3.7 percent increase in annual billed charges to students for the next school year. With the increase in our tuition will come a new upstairs deck for a fully renovated Sherman, a full repair for Ziv Quad and expanded Einstein’s and bookstore area. Also detailed in the email were updates for the first-year residence halls, new faculty hirings and further investment in the RCC and the Hiatt Career Center. These are reasonable uses for tuition hikes, if of course these were the only things said hikes are going to.
In a perfect world, our tuition does not increase, or at least it increases with the rate of inflation. However, tuition has been increasing at a rate much higher than the current inflation rate in the United States, making for an increase in how much the university is taking in from students. The increases in the budget go to general improvements to the university like those listed in Lawrence’s email, but the same budget also feeds other campus programs with our tuition money.
Last Sunday, April 19, we had ’Deis Day coincide with Admitted Students Day, complete with a carnival on Chapels Field. It seems almost as if the Student Union didn’t spare any expense to provide a joyous event for stressed out students as well as prospective students who wouldn’t always see something like this at Brandeis. Although the Student Union meant well in its attempts to aid admissions and the student body as a whole, the resources that went into the carnival were wasted.
The money that Student Union has to use comes out of our tuition, which has been rising annually for a while now. Make the logical connection and you’ll see that some of our tuition money is going to events like the ’Deis Day carnival. In today’s economic situation, the annual billed charges that the university hands down to its students are hard enough to deal with as is, which is part of the reason hikes are not popular among students and their families. Nobody likes having to pay more money, especially when you know that it’s being squandered.
The question of the carnival does not produce the results that the Student Union would expect. Many students found themselves unable to attend due to the proximity of the ’Deis Day/Admitted Students Day festivities to the end of the semester and its associated workload. A few students on separate occasions pointed out to me on Sunday that they did not agree with the idea of using the carnival for the purpose of attracting prospective students, who may see the attempt as childish. Do we want our school to be seen as a continuation of high school silliness or an institution of higher learning? True, for some it was a great way to relieve stress, and for some prospective students it provided an enjoyable experience at Brandeis, but it isn’t a good way of broadcasting what the university does with its resources.
With ’Deis Day over and Student Events’ (which also gets around 2 percent of our tuition) Springfest just around the corner, it’s time to rethink how the administration distributes resources around campus departments given the continuous increases in annual billed charges. From a perspective that focuses on the student body, both ’Deis Day and Springfest stand as pathways to alleviate stress, and that’s all well and good, but having both of them in the span of two weeks to accomplish the same goal is redundant and a waste of money.
Given that Springfest is more of a student favorite, I believe that the features of ’Deis Day should be rethought, along with other redundant and/or unnecessary programs being funded by our ever-increasing tuition. If for a good cause, the hikes are more palatable, but with events like carnivals being funded by our money, it makes it seem more and more that the university is wasting the generous amount of resources it accrues.
