The increasing price of a decreasing education.

The Lunatick's Ravings

Ah College, the wonderful institution we are all in. The best thing about this particular institution is that it is a public university and therefore inexpensive. Inexpensive??? That seems relative lately. Inexpensive compared to what, Harvard, Yale or another ivy league school?

It seems they are planning another increase in the tuition of this school. For what, you ask? Increased services? More classes so you can graduate on time? More parking spaces? Building improvements? The answer is: NONE OF THE ABOVE. They just want more of your money so that the high muckety-mucks of the SUNY system can continue to receive outrageous salaries for doing absolutely nothing that benefits the students.

Hey all you commuters ever wonder why your parking permit is now good for five years? Hey everyone else, don't you wonder why your ID is also good for five years? A college education is only supposed to take four years, right? Nope, not here. Only one of my friends has graduated in the four years that you expect college to take. Everyone else has taken at least an extra semester or summer classes not because they failed classes but because they couldn't get into the courses they needed. So evidence seems to suggest that even the university expects you to take five years. I wonder why in the new academic bulletin they have these nice 4 year plans mapped out. Surely they don't expect you to follow these plans.

Service is a foreign concept on this university. In business the customer is always right. Lets see, we pay money to get an "Education" here, so that would make us customers. Then why are we ignored, yelled and generally jerked around by this university system? I remember the days of registering in person for classes. You had to get there an hour before the Registrar opened to get a place on line inside the building. Then if you were really lucky they posted the closed out classes when the Registrar opened, so you could scurry to find alternates. Then you waited to hand in you form and then waited on line again to get the receipt that tells you how many of your classes closed while you were waiting. Even better you were told that academic advising is blocking you from registering. So you go to them. Wait on another line only to find out that they have no idea what you are talking about. You then discover that due to a wonderful computer error you are now a Mechanical Engineering major. I thought I was A bio major you say to yourself. So you now have to bring a change of major form and get back on that long line. Sounds like we are valued customers to me.

But all that has changed now. You have the phone in system. Ah yes now it's computerized. You just need a phone and your little guidebook to all the three digit codes. It's simple and flawless they tell you. You just have to get into the system. So you dial the number and get a busy signal. Then dial again and get through, you punch all the digits but the registration computer is too busy to handle another call and disconnects you. (quick cheat: To bypass the GO2SB number dial 2-9393 it gets you directly to the registration computer). You finally get through and the computer accepts your classes. Wait a minuet isn't this the same computer that screwed up your major? If I were you I would go and get a hard copy printed to confirm that it took.

This isn't important to us right now. What’s important is how do we pay for this? Well you could have done what I did and work during high school to save up for college. Then have tuition go up over one thousand dollars since the time you began college. Then continue to work two jobs through college so you don't have these outrageously high student loans to pay off. Then you end up with a mediocre grade point average and a need to sleep in class. Not because you were a party animal who stayed out all night, but because you work 11pm - 7am so you can afford college. It also happens to be the only time you have free to work because your classes are all over the place due to trying to graduate on time. But ya know it's ironic sleeping through the education you are working so hard to get.

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