David Taintor

Compared to the other UW System schools, our tuition is extraordinarily affordable. UW-Eau Claire is the second cheapest four-year public university in Wisconsin. Arguably, the only university that is academically superior is Madison, but we dominate them in undergraduate research. But being close to the cheapest school does have its downfalls.

Our professors are paid far below the national average of public institutions. Our administration and faculty come to Eau Claire for many of the same reasons students do; only they tend to leave for another university. It isn’t because of the quality of our university; Eau Claire is no longer financially competitive enough to retain the faculty we are accustomed to.

Professors inspire, teach us new ideas and open the doors for our education; they also frustrate us, fumble with technology and sometimes waste our time. There is no denying the higher quality professors yield higher educational outcomes, but better professors demand higher salaries. Currently we cannot match the salaries necessary to retain these faculty members.

So Eau Claire is stuck in a predicament.

How do we continue to provide the level of education we came here for when the state consistently cuts our funding? The university has two income sources – our tuition dollars we pay each semester and taxpayer money received from the state. With less money from the taxpayers, the only other option is tuition from our pockets. But one major reason we all chose Eau Claire was its affordability.

To better illustrate this frustrating problem I will use a universal student analogy – cell phones.

We have gone to the cell phone kiosk and they gave us an offer, an iPhone for the price of the cheap Nokia. The monthly plan includes free applications and unlimited data service, all for the cost of the basic Nokia plan. The offer is great; we obviously prefer the iPhone over any other phone so we purchase it.

But each time we get our bill the balance is higher. The question then becomes how long do we expect to pay Nokia prices for the quality of an iPhone? The tuition we pay each semester is at Nokia levels, but the quality of our education is that of an iPhone. We are getting more than what we pay for.

As an example, the state budget proposals are financially gouging the food services on campus. Students generally believe the food is far too expensive for the quality of the product; we feel that we are paying the price of the iPhone but receiving the Nokia. We all know we are paying far more than what we get, so it’s worth a fight to keep the cost of the meal plans at the same level of the quality we receive. But fighting to keep the cost of tuition low is not as easily justifiable.

We are the second cheapest four-year school, but when ranked academically we are near the top of list. If our tuition costs were directly correlated with our level of academia then the education we receive would fall far below that of UW-Stout, UW-La Crosse, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Point. While we aren’t below these universities in academic standing, we pay far less than what they pay for their tuition.

We cannot sustain the growth of our university, or even keep it at its current level without increasing one of its funding sources. The state is broke so it leaves only one other option – students. Yes, tuition is going to increase this year because it does every year. An increase of 5.5 percent is expected from the state budget, but an increase beyond the minimum expectation has not been out of the question.

If tuition increases beyond the 5.5 percent, we can retain the faculty that make our degrees so valuable and allow the university to continue its growth. If tuition increases at the expected level, our faculty will have more incentive to find a better paying job. Tuition will remain affordable, but the quality will diminish exponentially. Keeping our tuition increase to a minimum may appear to save us money, but it will be harder to get the courses we need to graduate. An extra semester here, and the rent utilities that come with it, would cost far more than a tuition increase.

As your representative, I pose to you a serious question. Do we prioritize low tuition, even if that means fewer professors, higher class sizes and a more challenging registration process; or do we allow the price of our education to move closer to its overall value?

Lower tuition is tempting, but eventually we will get what we pay for – a Nokia. Increased tuition isn’t a popular idea, yet it may be necessary. Funding needs to come from somewhere, because the iPhone we all love might turn into a Nokia.

Umhoefer is a senior public relations major and guest columnist for The Spectator.