The U has been naughty, and now we’re being punished.
The Utah State Legislature has stopped the recreation center in its tracks by refusing the bond necessary to begin construction.
This isn’t a case of not having enough money in the state coffers. The rec center wouldn’t have cost the state a dime-we simply needed to be loaned the money, which we would then pay back.
Despite the fact that an independent-research company found that two-thirds of students would be willing to pay an increased fee for the use of a rec center, legislators apparently knew better.
This is based on?well, who knows?
The Legislature’s logic-if you can call it that-is that if students are unwilling to raise tuition, then they shouldn’t be willing to raise fees for “perks.”
What legislators are clearly over-looking, however, is the fact that when tuition is raised, students don’t get any tangible benefits: Our educational experience is not improving, despite additional costs.
When we raise our student fees, however, we do so for very specific reasons-every fee goes into a particular fund, whether it be for the Associated Students of the University of Utah, the athletics department or, in this case, to build a recreation center.
Anyone who can grasp the concept of “things can be different” should be able to appreciate the distinction.
The student rec center project has been on the horizon since 2001. Independent-research companies have polled student opinion. Student leaders and administrators have been flown across the country to look at other campuses’ rec centers. The blueprints have been drawn up-the old dorms have been torn down. Ground breaking was scheduled for this spring.
And now all that time, money and effort has been a complete waste. Apparently tuition-and-tax-paying adults-able to drive, vote, be drafted, get married, have children and hold down jobs-are incapable of making their own decisions.
Regardless of how you felt about the rec center project, you should be outraged at this disrespectful, paternalistic decision. The idea that the Legislature turned down a project-that will cost it absolutely NO money-despite the fact that students wanted it is beyond laughable. It goes into the realms of the absurd.
People who want Utah out of the United Nations; people who want intelligent design taught in public schools; people who owe us millions of dollars in guaranteed funding; people who waste time and tax; payer money defining marriage for the 4-billionth time in state law; people who should be paying for our electricity, but have stuck us with the temporary-turned-into-permanent bill, have apparently decided that they are smarter than the U’s administration, student leaders and entire student population combined.
They should feel quite proud of themselves.