Northeastern has been renovating a great deal of buildings  around campus recently. The new Curry Student Center, high-tech library facilities on the second floor, and the renovation of classroom and research spaces have enhanced the nature of the school not only in the eyes of students and faculty, but with popular ranking lists as well, as Northeastern continues to move upward in the US News and World Report rankings.

Like many private schools, Northeastern comes with a price tag that would make students from 30 years ago faint, but that’s just the nature of the game nowadays. Schools are expensive, but students still wonder, where does some the money that we pay go?

University officials have said that it is against the policy of Northeastern to provide information on how much each project costs, what percentage of the project costs come from student tuition and what comes from donated money.

It’s understandable why they do it that way. First of all, making every detail about funding available to anyone who wants it could be a long and complicated process. Second, all of that knowledge  will inevitably lead to a lot of debates that may never be resolved. And as a private nonprofit institution, they have the right to keep a good deal of their finances out of the public spectrum.

But students, like every other person living in the United States, should be allowed to see how their money is being used when they give it to a major institution.

There is a need for Northeastern to show students and local media the price of each individual project, not because there is suspicion of funds being used incorrectly, but because suspicion arises when information is withheld.

Students can find out how some of their money, namely Student Activity Fee dollars which are allocated by student government’s Finance Board, is spent. But students are often left wondering about dollar figures when the university embarks on a major project.

With hope, Northeastern will continue to add attributes to its campus that give the school and its students a competitive edge in the real world, and students can understand and learn more about the inner workings of the school without being stopped by policies to keep quiet about spending.