Tuition Increase? How About a Class Increase, Please

Originally published January 18, 2007.

That time of year has arrived again, budget proposal time. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new proposal includes a tuition fee increase for the California State University system that could jump as much as 10 percent. The fact that we pay absurd amount of money for books, another 10 percent increase in tuition is not welcome. Students should be wondering where all this money is going.

I’ve been to schools where they dump a ridiculous amount of money to build a giant sportsplex that looks like it could be the next science and technology museum. I’m all for putting money into sports and arts, but does the building really need to take up half the campus and look like a state monument? I’m hoping that California State University East Bay doesn’t follow a similar path.

One of my biggest complaints (besides the food situation at the student Union), is that we don’t have enough classes. Not only are we seeing incredibly long waiting lists, we’re practically sitting on top of each other in classrooms where I’m positive we’re breaking some kind of fire code.
I’m not sure if it was a glitch in the system, but I saw a waiting list at 31 people for a class. You’d think that once the list hits about 15 or so, people might give up. Is it a really popular class? Is it an easy teacher? Or is it because the class is rarely offered?

The main issue is that due to budget cuts, the school had to cut teachers, therefore cutting back on classes. With Schwarzenegger’s proposal, the money should be put back into our education by hiring new teachers or bringing the current part-time teachers on full-time.

There are many great part-time teachers who don’t have the opportunity to teach as many classes as they should. It is very difficult to find a teacher that can motivate, inspire and educate. When one comes along, the school should do everything in its power to keep them.

It would be nice to have more options when it comes to selecting our schedules. There shouldn’t be that elusive course that is only offered once a year or once every other year. Most people want to graduate in a set amount of time, and not be screwed come graduation with a course that’s not being offered until next quarter.

There is a severe shortage of evening classes as well. Many students work full time during the day, and need to find late afternoon or evening classes to attend. When there just isn’t a selection of courses, students are forced to just take anything that fits into their time schedule instead of taking the classes that they want to take. It’s bad enough to pay for classes you don’t necessarily want to take but you take it anyways because you could use it to satisfy Area F. If there is a tuition increase, then there better be an increase in quantity and quality of our choices.

I hope that if we do need to suck up the tuition increase, we will see some positive changes. I’d hate to see a multi-million dollar complex go up that looks like the Sydney Opera House and have it be empty and unused. Or even worse, we will see no changes at all.

Sophia is a junior communications major.