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To any outsider, establishing residency in this great state of Colorado seems like a fine idea indeed.
Add to it the fact that as a student at the university level, one’s tuition rates are nearly $10,000 less per semester and residency begins looking like the Holy Grail.
Thus, leaving all my friends and family nearly 1,000 miles behind and making the solo trek out to Boulder was a personal sacrifice I was more than willing to make. And losing one semester of college credit hours to gain residency and in-state tuition seemed like a small price to pay.
I’m sad to say, however, that I fear I’m in the wake of an ominous backfire.
Given the nearly $10,000 tuition break last spring, I found the 9.5 percent increase for in-state tuition — roughly $667 per semester for me — was an easy pill to swallow.
But now plans are in the making for an additional 9.5 percent increase. Is this 9.5 percent increase really the magical solution to the university’s budget deficits? Is a 9.5 percent increase going to be the answer every year?
Where does this “9.5 percent” even come from?
Already behind a semester, with hopes of going abroad one day, and adding a minor and a certificate to my degree, I will be paying CU tuition for some time to come. My fear is now, by the time I am ready to graduate, in-state tuition rates will be equivalent to the astronomically high rates paid by out-of-staters.
If this continues, I don’t know who will be able to afford to go to college.
The real kicker is I’m not sure what I can do about any of it. My best chance at having any say in the matter is in voting to elect a worthy candidate for the CU Student Government. But elections haven’t even begun, and these candidates already seem to be writing the matter off to higher authorities.
As candidate Larissa Armand told the Colorado Daily last week: “I think it’s more accessible to address textbook costs rather than tuition, which the state has a lot of control over. There’s only so much we can do with tuition.”
So let’s take the matter a step up and turn to our regents. A regent vote aiming to cut the proposed tuition hike in half, however, failed Wednesday.
Well how about that chancellor of ours? Nope. In a campus address, Phil DiStefano declared his opposition to the regents’ proposal. And just to put the icing on the cake, CU President Bruce Benson made it official as he stated we simply cannot make choices regarding CU tuition until state budgets have been allocated.
My question to you now, my fellow Buffs, is where do we go from here? Exactly who has the power in determining the fate of our financial future?
For now, it sure looks like we are at the mercy of the state.
Abby Faires is a student at the University of Colorado.
