Editor,
The new tuition increase punishes working students, forcing the ones who can least afford college, but who paradoxically demonstrate the most promise by their hard-working examples, to ensure for themselves early burn-out by taking more courses as they also try to put themselves through school. For students such as myself, a mother with a full plate, it is impossible to carry more than 12 credits, and I, too, am “fined” by this new system for not having the luxury of time and funds to take on more coursework.
What this policy will do is increase the percentage of students who do not finish school, rather than realize its disingenuously stated aim of creating an incentive for students to graduate on time. The 42 percent graduation rate at UNM will not be improved by this new policy. Would that UNM’s bureaucracy match the good intentions of its fine instructors, and create smart tuition policies that showed it is more concerned with launching the leaders of tomorrow rather than squeezing disadvantaged individuals dry of every last cent and every last ounce of scholarly energies. Even the announcement’s timing, at the start of finals, smacks of a certain inconsideration.
Jill Atkin
UNM student
