Editor’s note: The following letter to the editor was written in response to a story that appeared in the Aug. 24, 2017 edition of the Northern Iowan, entitled “Reynolds criticizes tuition hikes.”

It is both frustrating and disappointing to see how both administrators and politicians consistently react to tuition issues. They never come to a significant conclusion, and their fallback solution is always the same: raise tuition higher. They simply argue about the details. 

The entire debate, if it can be called that, is how to input more money into the system. Apparently, the only solution to any problem in education is more money.  If the taxpayers will not give it up, the students and their parents must.

Walt Rogers was correct, and sadly wrong, when he stated that administrators need to, “…start looking at out-of-the-box ways to teach, and online potential…”  

Yes, administrators do need to start looking at out-of-the-box solutions, but not about ways to teach.  They need to start looking at innovative and cheaper ways to administrate. 

The recent history of UNI has been characterized by a constant increase in cost to students, coupled with a constant decrease in educational support.  Almost every semester, some cut is announced in what we can offer in the classroom. 

UNI promotes itself to prospective students by highlighting the student/faculty ratio and then does not replace teaching lines and announces that all classes that become “too small” must be cancelled.  Why?  Irrespective and unrelated to historical economic conditions, we must compromise teaching because of “budget cuts.”

At the same time, UNI pays the salaries of two non-teaching employees for every one that teaches. It continues to support a big-boy athletic program that runs a $5 million a year deficit, and then we get lectures and demands to cut the cost of teaching. 

One solution to the tuition crisis is to give options to students. Not everyone should, nor does everyone want, to fly first class. If students only wanted an education with no extras, tuition could be cut in half.  If they wanted more extras and tangential benefits, they could always find a university that would take their money. 

Students should not be paying for cut-rate athletic entertainment they do not wish to buy.  They should not be paying for student services they do not wish to use.  They should not be paying for the ever expanding and expensive bureaucracy that is the defining characteristic of a modern university. 

There are solutions to the tuition crisis, but not until administrators and politicians begin to honestly think out-of-the-box and stop using universities for everyone’s hobbyhorse, except for those interested in actual education. 

— Dennis Clayson,

Marketing Professor