With the exception of Gators football, I have not seen anything in my years at UF that has united the student body quite like block tuition.
We students have made it known that we stand firmly opposed to the idea. Our representative on the Board of Trustees, Student Body President Ashton Charles, has led the opposition to the administration’s proposal, and, due in large part to her efforts, the proposal was delayed for one year.
Delaying the debate is not good enough. Block tuition will be no better in 2012 than it would have been in 2011. We cannot let our guard down and we must continue to actively oppose block tuition.
For those unsure of what block tuition entails, rest assured that you are not alone. The specifics of the proposal have been underpublicized and are nebulous.
Essentially, the administration seeks to establish a system in which all students are charged tuition as if they were taking 15 credit hours, regardless of whether they are actually taking 12 or 18. While students who choose to take more than 15 hours would be the beneficiaries of this policy, they represent a very small minority of students. The administration’s intent is to cut costs by financially pressuring students to take on a heavier course load, thereby speeding up graduation rates.
The advocates of block tuition are, in effect, suggesting that academics should be a student’s only focus and that “distractions” from class — including extracurricular activities, work and volunteering — only take away from the educational experience of attending UF.
I know that I am not alone in the belief that nothing could be further from the truth. The college experience is a dynamic one that encompasses a broad range of activities that enrich the lives of students in ways a classroom never could.
The advocates of block tuition have yet to adequately address the genuine concerns of students who work full time. Though one senior administrator remarked that students who work “choose” to do so, my experience suggests that the vast majority of students who work full time do so because they need to finance their educations. Many students rely on a full-time job (while simultaneously taking a full-time course load) to provide them with the money they need to pay for meals, rent, medicine, textbooks and tuition. Students that endure such a challenging path should be helped, not undermined and taken advantage of. Block tuition makes no exception for these students, and it would not only raise their tuition but would pressure them into taking on a heavier course load and add further stress to their lives.
For those of you who have been fortunate to get involved with extracurricular activities here at UF, you will no doubt agree that a substantial amount of learning is accomplished outside of the classroom. Tens of thousands of students have had their lives enriched by the multitude of extracurricular activities here at UF, and the implementation of block tuition would discourage such activities by forcing students to take on a more burdensome academic load.
Contrary to what some critics may say, students do not oppose block tuition because of laziness or a lack of academic motivation. We do so because block tuition would prevent us from obtaining a complete education that is based on more than what is taught in the classroom.
If we want UF graduates to be diverse, well-rounded and engaged citizens of the world, we must encourage UF students to go beyond reading about experiences and actually live them.
Moreover, we should never forget that there are students who are forced by circumstance to work full time in order to afford the cost of a UF degree — block tuition works to punish them for doing so.
There are numerous other reasons why block tuition would have a negative impact on our university. I simply write to remind us all about two aspects of block tuition that I believe to be the most troubling. First, block tuition would negatively impact the experience of nearly all UF students. Second, though the potential implementation of block tuition has been delayed, we must use the added time we have to continue our opposition.
Our administration is not an adversary; administrators have the interests of the students in mind, which is why student activism has historically been effective. We cannot rest on our laurels knowing that this proposal has been delayed, and we must continue to actively and respectfully stand in firm opposition.
Ben Meyers is the Student Senate President.
