In yet another example of administrative fiscal irresponsibility, Georgetown’s Board of Directors voted to increase tuition last Tuesday.
Provost James O’Donnell said in an Office of Communications memo that the 6.2 percent increase will allow the university to keep faculty salaries competitive, increase financial aid and improve campus facilities. Students should recognize this attempt to shift the burden of the administration’s failures from those responsible to the students and resist these unnecessary impositions.
This increase, coming on the heels of the Bush administration’s budget proposal, which will eliminate the federal Perkins Loan Program, will simply exacerbate mismanagement of the school’s funds at the expense of the student body. The University claims that the increase will benefit financial aid recipients by working to increase Pell grants, which do not require repayment. At most, however, the increase will simply level out the government’s proposed reduction of federal Work Study grants and elimination of Perkins Loans, and skirts the greater problem of the University’s floundering financial situation.
The Office of Communications memo also detailed proposed improvements to facilities, library holdings and technology services that are mediocre at best. These proposals raise concerns about the unchecked, inadequate planning that governs the University’s construction agenda over the next several years.
The clear targets of the raise in tuition are the salaries of the faculty, which, according to the memo, the University pledged to increase yearly by 2.25 percent above inflation five years ago. While our faculty certainly deserve a fair level of pay, the students are being recklessly milked by the same administration that saw the University’s Standard & Poor’s credit rating drop last semester as the Medical Center continues to drastically drain resources that could be applied to any of the increase’s stated goals.
Far from making the cost of a Georgetown education even more astronomical than it already is, the Board of Directors should be turning their attention to the causes of the University’s dire financial straits. Only then will they fulfill their responsibilities to the University and its students.
