If you’re just joining us, Oakland University’s “You can afford this” campaign quickly became the biggest joke on campus this summer.

 

We published a Mouthing Off column roasting the slogan. Student liaison to the OU board of trustees, Tawnee Milko, mentioned the “infamous” billboards at one of the July board meetings where a tuition increase was decided on. She recommended that there be no tuition increase, but if the board passed the increase, then they should reconsider the contradictory slogan. Neither suggestions were acted upon, and the 2010 budget was passed with a 9 percent undergraduate and 3 percent graduate tuition increase, as well as an “across-the-board” salary freeze.

 

The marketing campaign is really just a convenient example of the odd logic associated with the budget. The OU community wants to know how the university can claim affordability when it keeps raising rates. After all, tuition went up 6.3 percent last year and 13.9 percent in 2007.

 

 Let us explain how this tuition increase is really working. The budget has essentially turned the university into a socialist organization in order to pay for its “affordable” initiatives. This concept is confusing, but tuition is being increased because it’s too high for most students to afford.

 

According to university documents, 55 percent of students will be receiving aid, on average almost $500 more than last year. Not even included in that average is the new freshmen guarantee, where some incoming freshmen will only have to pay their expected family contribution (as determined by FAFSA). The rest will be covered by the inflated tuition and the raises the employees didn’t receive.

 

The administration and board are pushing to bring the quality of an OU education on par with the likes of MSU and U of M. But a pay freeze for the staff and faculty responsible for delivering that education is counterproductive to that goal.

 

 

 The least the university can do is give those footing the bill a pat on the back for not only struggling to get their own degree, but for helping others get one.

 

Roughly speaking, the average student paying the full rate for 16 credits will have to work an extra three and a half hours per week at $8/hour take-home to make up the difference from last year’s tuition. That’s for upper level, in-state undergraduate students. The cost difference for freshmen and sophomores is $388 (still over three more hours of work per week). Those unfortunate enough to earn junior class standing this year, the difference is $820 (almost seven more hours of work per week, bye-bye study days).

 

Despite the enormous sacrifices, it’s not that we completely oppose a system that allows more people to attend college for less money. We oppose the illusion that a tuition increase and salary freeze were the only options to go about it. Especially when only a few ridiculous options were presented to the board as alternatives: cutting jobs, eliminating the option to pay for housing and tuition with credit cards, no more new maintenance or upgrade projects.

 

Why not a voluntary pay cut for the administrators who received generous, “unrelated” pay increases a year before the mandatory salary freeze on all employees? If the rest of us have to pitch in for the common good, so should they. Or instead of increasing tuition to pay for increased aid, in turn exhausting the financial aid department and anybody who tries to understand the concept, just keep tuition affordable for everybody. If they’re not going to do that, then please just change the slogan, so our experience at OU is a little less patronizing.