Letter to the editor: Be frustrated with the system
The students and administration of USD have grappled with the issue of increasing the General Activity Fee (GAF) since the financing of the Wellness Center.
I was first introduced to this issue while serving as the vice president of SGA during Sami Zoss’ presidency. Now, I am approaching the proposed increase from the perspective of a student and soon to
be alumnus.
From both perspectives, I recognized the difficulty of this decision and the positive intentions of all involved. There are gifted and motivated students in every single program at USD, and President Abbott and the rest of USD’s administration truly want to see every student reach their full potential.
In order to allow students the opportunity to reach their full potential, higher education needs more funding. Our growing athletic department needs assistance to ensure student-athlete health and success, which has been shown to be one of the greatest marketing tools for a university across the nation. Our academic programs need funding for improved and impactful programming, unique experiences and teaching resources.
Despite our common goal for quality education and community, I have repeatedly witnessed students attacking other students over the rationing of this proposed funding. We gain nothing from turning on one another. Yet, I understand the frustration of constantly being confronted with increasing education costs.
Furthermore, we, the students, should not be solely responsible for these increases. Funding necessary programs for our state institutions is not a student problem – it’s a state problem, a Board of Regents problem and a South Dakota Legislature problem.
I want to challenge each of us to not direct our frustrations toward each other, but rather, toward the system that has brought us to this point. We are a state institution, and therefore, the state has a reasonable expectation to invest adequate funds. I would like to direct attention toward two key figures found on the Board of Regents website. The first being, “the six public universities in South Dakota generate $2.66 billion a year in annual economic impact within the state, from a state investment of $197 million.”
The second comes from their yearly factbook, “Students provide 56% of yearly support for public institutions while the state only provides 44%.”With so much money being generated from our institutions and contributions, why are we held further responsible for supporting state universities?
USD is a great community of students, faculty and administration. Rather than turning inward on, and against, ourselves, we ought to use the information before us to hold our counterparts in the state to their role in this partnership.
Michael Buchanan, senior double major in medical biology and psychology
