The United States is in a recession and unemployment is the highest it’s been in a long time. We’ve seen the 89th bank failure of the year (or, perhaps by the time this paper is published, there will be a 90th). Yet Northeastern last year raised the prices of housing, dining, and tuition beyond the cost of inflation. In other operations that serve students or clients, we’ve seen prices frozen or even reduced as a stimulus. Even the U.S. government under a majority liberal congress reduced tax burden on Americans with stimulus checks. Why doesn’t Northeastern reduce costs, waste less money and lower the burden on students?
The problem is not the big spending. International Village’s planning and construction cost millions of dollars. However, this is a capital investment. The building will be serving Northeastern students, faculty, staff and alumni for decades. The building, forbidding any unfortunate circumstances, will probably outlast everyone who is reading this today. The millions of dollars brought us more than 1,150 new on-campus housing spaces, a top-of-the-line dining hall that is getting great acclaim, new classrooms and new office space. It’s a great investment, and it’s a good use of the money that Northeastern has acquired thanks to our payments of tuition and housing fees.
What is a complete and utter waste of money is when the university goes out and purchases custom bottles of water to give out at move-in, then proceeds to give a reusable water bottle to each and every person who attended Monday morning’s convocation. I understand that during move-in, people need to be given water to stay hydrated, but it would probably make a lot more sense and would cost a lot less to give out the reusable bottles at check-in, and then have paper cups (that can be recycled or are biodegradable) available with pitchers or large dispensers of water. Alternatively, it would be cheaper to buy regular bottles of water instead of custom-made ones.
Another waste at Northeastern:’ the parking attendants that we have at the entrance to our parking lots and garages. Rather than utilize the swipe card systems and retracting arms at all the parking lots/garages, there are attendants who look to see if cars have parking decals on their windows. Even more of a waste is the person at Renaissance Park Garage (which uses the swipe system) who stands there and tells cars it’s OK to exit the garage. A stop sign should be adequate. Anyone who is driving a car should have learned that when you stop at these signs you look for other traffic or pedestrians before proceeding forward, and so there is no reason to pay someone to wave cars out. There’s no added benefit to paying a person to stand there, other than perhaps helping to reduce the state’s unemployment rate.
Printing’s another waste. We have invested millions in information technology infrastructure and systems. If the university simply mandated that faculty must accept electronic assignment submission, students would not be forced to waste ink and toner printing documents out that could have been e-mailed to a professor or submitted through Blackboard, which is an online learning service that the university pays for.
The solution here is for Northeastern to take a fiscally conservative approach to its operations. Where costs and wastes can be reduced, our university should reduce them. When students tell the administration that something isn’t utilized, isn’t needed, or could be done for less, they should listen. Finally, the university should seek to commit to a system in which once students enter the university, their tuition costs remains frozen throughout their time at the university, like other institutions of higher learning have already done. And maybe, just maybe, if a good enough job is done, tuition costs can be reduced.
‘- Matthew Soleyn is a senior marketing and information science major and vice president of the Resident Student Association.
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