Editorial Disagreement

In your editorial of Sept. 26, you tell The Northern Light and others to "grow up" for arguing that a tuition increase to help the needy was a bad idea. Your weak argument for the increase was that "students should help pay for needy students to go to college because no one else will," implying that most of us don't need money.

Maybe you have deep pockets, but student loans and PFD's are the only way most of us in this office can afford to go to even as cheap a college as UAA. Even with this job, I would still be a need-based student. But asking my classmates to help pay for my education is as unfair as charging a fee to those without cars in the name of keeping parking-permit costs down.

Your casual dismissal of that fact doesn't even take into account that needy students would feel the increase as well; unless a bureaucratic miracle takes place, the chance of the all the money going to only the people that need it most isn't something I'd count on. If you personally want to pay for needy students, send your checks down this way - but raising tuition to improve affordability is the most backwards-thinking proposal I've ever heard.

Aaron Burkhart
Editor in chief
UAA Northern Light

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

I would like make a brief comment concerning ASUAF’s move to snub additional funds for need-based scholarships. Speaking as a need-based student, I find it abhorrent that elected officials would display such snobbery toward the students they are supposed to represent.

Shooing away the difficulties faced by financially strapped students by citing “numerous scholarships” indicates to me just how out of touch the student government is with the student body.

What is equally frustrating is the seemingly short supply of merit-based aid. Although I am a highly motivated student, I (and the majority of my friends) repeatedly fail to see the coveted merit-based scholarships included in our financial aid packages.

Increasing the funding for need-based scholarships, which is what the additional 1-3 percent tuition increase would have accomplished, is the best way to provide reliable aid to those of us who struggle to pay for school each semester.

Succinctly, ASUAF has done a great disservice to the student body. Would paying an extra few dollars per credit hour absolutely break a student? No -- and believe me, I know.

Would need-based students feel that they are “the poor paying for the poorer?” No -- paying the small additional increase in tuition would ensure that they themselves profit from the enormous funds generated for need-based scholarships and grants.

I suppose it is hard to understand the financial struggles faced by students when one is sucking on a silver spoon.

Cortney Pylant
UAF student