The Observer, March 18, 2005
Volume XXXVII, Issue 21
University should be more forthcoming with students
Spring break and midterms have come and gone, and that means that the time has arrived to plan for the upcoming school year. Scheduling for classes is right around the corner, but housing and tuition costs have already made an impact on Case students – if they're aware of what's going on.
Tuesday marked the first real announcement regarding housing for the 2005-2006 school year. The information – which was due out nearly a month ago – was delivered in a non-traditional blue booklet which explains all the housing options that students will have to decide on within the next few weeks. However, the blue booklet was not the only new development. Rumors of the astronomical housing rates for The Village at 115 were confirmed, with a six-bedroom apartment coming in at a whopping $1270 more per year than the current Southside singles. While the rooms are quite a bit larger with a few more amenities, at a rate of $750 per month a little more luxury is hardly worth it. In fact, negative feelings regarding these prices are already apparent. Because all upperclassmen will have the option of living off campus, the rush to find off-campus housing is already well underway. The search for the perfect apartment or house closer to the Case Quad has also become a new goal for Case students.
Aside from the high rates, the detachment of the new dorms from the Case Quad has also forced students – even those who perhaps had managed to overlook the scarcely affordable new dorms – to forego the convenience of campus housing and seek housing with a closer proximity to their classes.
The other aspect of the new Case wallet-slimming diet is the little-publicized 7 percent tuition increase being implemented for the upcoming school year. While some may argue that it is less than last year's increase, $1900 extra does add up in the end. What perhaps is worse is the fact that, unlike in past years, the university has made little effort to announce the increase. Students have a right to be told – up front – how much more they will be expected to shell out for their ivy league-ousting education. For an update on tuition increases, one has to actually search the Case home page. This may not seem like a difficult task, but for the Case student burdened with exams, homework, and other activities, digging for the latest hike in tuition is the furthest thing on anyone's mind. Students have come to expect, and even mock in day-to-day activity, the fact that tuition increases on a yearly basis. While some may even agree that it is necessary to maintain the prestige and quality of the Case education, there are even more that feel the constant rise is unwarranted. If students aren't given any indication that the tution increases are occurring for justifiable reasons, then there certainly exists a cause for concern on their part.
This is the time for the university to offer students some explanation for the incredible increase in housing and the common rise in tuition. Students are smart enough to want answers, and the university should grant them that much. A simple statement of the university's plans would do much for the overall satisfaction of the student body. Forcing student's to guess every next move only results in agitated and skeptical attitudes. If the university was more open about important issues – such as where all the money goes and when they plan to increase rates – students would have one less issue to complain about.
