Hello, I am a “non-traditional student” here at UNM.
What makes me non-traditional?
I received a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from NMSU in 1987.
After graduating, I worked for the U.S. Navy and Air Force as well as the Department of Energy for about 20 years. Between 2004 and 2006, I had a few reconstructive surgeries and a lot of rehabilitation. I got to see the medical world from the other side, and I was very impressed with the nurses. I chose to change fields and enter the nursing occupation. I start the Level I nursing program in August.
I have been here at UNM since June of 2010. Since I have been back to school, something I have been doing is comparing my collegiate experience during the 80s and now.
I see a lot of differences between then and now. Some of the differences, like the cost of a college education, are dramatic and not what I really expected.
Some of the differences, like trends, fads and styles, are minor and expected. Others, like social interactions, are due to changes in technology. When I was an undergrad we didn’t have cell phones, texting, Facebook, email or Internet, and students talked to each other more.
But moving on to what most students are probably concerned about: educational costs. I had a tough time trying to determine why it costs exponentially more now than in the 80s and what a student is getting for all that extra money that he or she is spending.
It is not like the administration is paying the professors and staff a whole lot of money. When I read about the UNM salary book, I looked at the salaries for some of the instructors that I had, and the salaries have in no way kept pace with the cost of tuition.
It is not like students are getting a whole lot more in terms of benefits for their money either. The tuition for my last semester as an undergraduate at NMSU was about $450, and that included my student activity fee, parking sticker, and health center fee.
There were actually student parking lots on campus and you could see a health care provider at the health center (you were charged for services like X-rays and lab work). So, from what I can see, today’s students are really getting less for their money.
Things started making more sense after I read an article in the Daily Lobo that stated there were over 30 vice presidents at UNM and that each one made about $250,000 per year. Each vice president also has a staff and a budget, so there is a significant cost here to UNM.
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When I was an undergrad, we had one president and one vice president. I wondered if Schmidly was trying to emulate a multi-national corporation, like General Electric, where they have 42 vice presidents. However, GE also has over 300,000 employees and is a very efficient corporation.
I wondered how many of the UNM vice presidents, and their staff, are actually efficient and contribute to UNM’s accreditation or mission — probably very few. I wondered how many contribute to the well-being of the faculty, staff or students — probably even fewer. I wondered what they actually do — probably very little, if anything.
What does all of this mean to the average student? In my opinion, the collegiate experience is more than academics; it includes other extra-curricular activities where a student grows emotionally and socially, among other ways. These activities also cost money.
Instead of students spending what little money they have how they want to, in ways that will benefit them the most, they are paying the salary and benefits for vice presidents and their staffs, who really do very little, if anything for the students. Taking into account the chance that the Lottery Scholarship will disappear, I see the situation getting worse for students, in that a lot of them will have to take out loans to pay for something that does not benefit them.
