By Staff Editorial
When the Student Government Association voted last spring to make accepting the sports pass mandatory, they hoped “If you build it, they will come” would be more on the students’ minds than “If you take their money, they will be pissed off.”
But calm down, ye masses of hysteria. The once waivable sports pass being turned into a mandatory $45 per off-co-op semester allows us all to finally use that nasty S-word: stadium.
For years, students and administrators alike have crunched numbers, analyzed space and attacked the question of “can it happen” from every angle. Of course, it was really always about money — money we don’t have. Money the students, at least in part, need to front.
Almost no student would deny that having a stadium on campus would do wonders for the university. First, students would finally have a center of celebration. A place to support their university in the form of, at the very least, a Husky football team. No school has ever been adversely affected by an increase in school spirit.
As it stands now, close to 88 percent of students do not waive their sports pass. So for 88 percent of students, presuming they intentionally didn’t waive it, this is almost a non-issue. But 12 percent of 14,000 students is a considerable chunk just to write off their money as if they had $45 per semester in classes just lying around.
Again, no fear. Newly elected SGA president Andres Vargas is 10 steps ahead of you, planning to use the extra money to possibly increase the hours of the Curry Student Center and the Marino Center. Club sports, notoriously under-funded, will get some love from this new plan, too.
For the rest of you? “We can’t please everyone,” Vargas admits.
Some parts of this seemingly sweet deal taste a little bit sour. For one, this stadium we are funding, might not even be built for another five-to-10 years. That means, for those of you reading this story (aside from professors and you, cough, seven-year students), you can forget about ever hustling over to this stadium as an undergrad. But please, feel welcome to come back and pay full admission when you graduate.
So, the dilemma presents itself. You want a stadium, but you don’t want to pay for it. And you’re especially not willing to pay for it if you don’t get to see the fruits of your labor. “Increasing the value of your Northeastern degree” or “doing it for the kids” just isn’t enough to convince students weary with tuition increases and a floundering economy.
Maybe SGA and the administration should work out some kind of “kick-back” program for alumni. Eventually this stadium will produce revenue (Oh, don’t ever think this would be done if there was no profit), why not grant free admission for life or give a rebate to students involved in the “cash years?” At the very least, we can all agree on the stadium’s rightful name: Alumni Field.
