Balancing budget cuts, tuition hikes - Derek Mullins, Univ of Tenn Daily Beacon

It is undeniable that, when you strip away the frilly layers of academic achievement and athletic success, this university, like most, is a slave to money. That isn’t a critique. All universities have to get money somewhere. While quite a bit of UT’s funding comes from the state, a substantial amount comes from tuition dollars collected from the students who attend this institution. As economic times have gotten tougher, however, the university, its administration, its faculty and staff and we as a student body have had to deal with the aforementioned dreary choice. Budget cuts mean that students do not have to see significant increases in their tuition rates. At the same time, however, cuts also mean that faculty and staff lose their jobs, programs get cut and research efforts lose a source of funding. The alternative, of course, is to raise every student’s tuition. While this means that programs may not have to be cut and instructors may not need to be let go, more money will be required from the students, which, of course, means that more money comes out of savings accounts or higher amounts will have to be borrowed from loan sharks who prey on college students. Current estimates are forecasting that tuition rates will rise five to eight percent next academic year for UTK students. The point is that everyone at this university has to take a moment, get with reality and realize that we can avoid budget cuts or we can avoid tuition hikes, but we cannot avoid both. A choice has to be made.