Editor,
A 23.5 percent tuition increase in a little more than one year is another “only in New Mexico” phenomenon.
I challenge the state Legislature to find any other state-supported institution in the United States that has equaled or exceeded a 23.5 percent increase.
Furthermore, the Legislature is amazingly shortsighted to impose these stiff increases on a student body that already works too many hours because New Mexico already has a severe shortage of educated professionals. This is one of the major reasons corporations give when asked why they don’t move — or stay — in New Mexico.
We cannot improve the state’s tax base, attract capital or properly fund basic education and social services when we cannot attract high-quality jobs. New Mexicans are conscientious workers, but they’re not sufficiently educated to staff technological and financial institutions that pay real money.
I don’t want to hear from anybody about how “UNM is still a real bargain,” either. It is if you are from Massachusetts, where tuition is high. It is if you’re paying our tuition with Massachusetts’ wages, which are also high, but it is no bargain for New Mexicans in terms of the median income in our poor state.
For example, my tuition represents 20 percent of my income from my last job, and that was a job with no benefits. UNM is fairly expensive when compared with many other states.
The faculty isn’t earning enough, the students can’t afford to pay more and the Legislature’s unwillingness to acknowledge their accountability for the sorry state of New Mexico’s economy guarantee we’ll stay peripheral; a third world place within the United States.
Sharon Karpinski
University Studies student
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
