Starting this academic year, the ETSU Board of Trustees raised the cost of tuition by 2.3%, an increase of $214 per student. This was in opposition to the voices of students, who expressed their disapproval during the budget’s general comments period.
Before we freak out about $214 more slipping out of our pockets, we need to keep things in perspective. As President Brian Noland said in a video published by WCYB on June 17, “Our tuition and fees are still a full $3,000 below the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.”
Let’s also consider that around two-thirds of the tuition increase goes to the checkbooks of full-time faculty. Increasing these professors’ pay is a useful investment for students in the long run, because it provides potential professors more incentive to apply to ETSU and also to stay with us longer.
Alongside the concern of the increased tuition, we are also concerned with the notoriously slim wages adjunct faculty receive, especially as the tuition increase does not go to benefit them.
“If they’re going to increase tuition, then they should be paying their adjuncts more,” said student Connor McClelland.
In response to this concern, President Noland said deans will be able to raise adjuncts’ wages themselves and that “the beauty of that decentralization [of power in ETSU] is it provides flexibility and the opportunity to be innovative, because the College of Medicine is very different from the College of Arts and Sciences.”
Although he may seem to be avoiding responsibility, President Noland isn’t just passing the buck, no pun intended. He recognizes that a centralized form of government for the university isn’t necessarily the most effective way to manage it, and he is trusting the deans over their colleges to competently manage them. He acknowledges the value of their positions and validates their deserved expertise by handing over some power.
This is akin to the wisdom of the founding fathers in delegating powers to individual states that were prohibited from the federal government.
“[T]he powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite,” said James Madison, the Father of the Constitution.
As the federal government was not designed to be responsible for everything taking place within the country’s borders, we should not expect the central government of ETSU to be responsible for everything that takes place on campus. As the power of the federal government has grown beyond what the founding fathers had in mind, our complacency for that has grown with it, and thus we analogously expect the centralized government of ETSU to answer for all the decisions made in the university, although it shouldn’t be that way. President Noland should not be accountable for everything that happens within the university, and he is right when saying the deans should have more power in their respective colleges. That is the wise thing to do for the well-being of the campus.
Although we don’t know what financial decisions the university will make in the future, there is little reason to worry about dramatic tuition increases for the simple reason that other universities help to keep ETSU in check. ETSU would be risking suicide if they jacked up tuition high enough, as students would attend or transfer to other institutions. Thus, maintaining reasonable prices is within their best interest.
So, fellow students, let’s keep our cool; keep things in perspective; and keep fighting for the right causes in the right way.
