I am a graduate student who supports tuition increases to cover the rising operating costs of UF, including my meager salary.
There are many reasons for my support, but it primarily has to do with the fact that my tuition and the tuition of other instructors, and teaching and research assistants, has been waived as a result of the hard work of Graduate Assistants United.
I would ask all undergraduates who are protesting tuition hikes whether they voted in the midterm elections and for whom they voted.
If you didn't vote, you don't have much standing to complain about how the state chooses to fund Florida's institutions of higher learning.
If you voted for Republicans, then you essentially voted for policies and systems of taxation that will continue to directly and indirectly gut state support for education at all levels.
Ditto your parents. Education is expensive; if the state won't pay for it, then at least part of the cost has to fall back to individual students and families.
Certainly, there are cost-saving measures that can be put in place, but you can only whittle away so much before you can no longer claim "public Ivy" status.
UF provides an in-demand and highly expensive service. It just makes good old-fashioned capitalistic sense to raise the price of this service if the state and its citizens refuse to subsidize it at adequate levels.
Remember that the next time you walk into a voting booth. Your gripe isn't with UF, it's with Tallahassee.
C.T. Bland
4th Year Ph.D. Student
Graduate Instructor
Department of Religion
