Any doubt about UCF administrators' stance on the proposed Academic Enhancement Program was cleared up last week, with President Hitt saying that he would support it here if it worked at the University of Florida.
The program has been a controversial issue lately, but for any student who hasn't heard of it, here's the gist. UF has decided that it wants to tack on an extra $500 to tuition each semester. But this isn't just a tuition increase of more than 30 percent, Bright Futures or Florida Prepaid won't cover the fee, it will come directly from students' pockets.
There has been a lot of student opposition here, and I must give credit to Eric Eingold and Austin Smith for being at the forefront of opposition. It doesn't take close inspection to realize that there are some serious problems with this plan.
First of all, there's the name. I hate euphemisms, and I haven't seen many worse than this. If you are going to screw your students out of $500, try not to do it with a grin, telling them that it is an "Academic Enhancement Program." But maybe I'm taking it the wrong way, maybe we should continue this trend. Think about it, no more tuition. Instead, we'd just be making "University Betterment Donations."
For any school to institute this fee, a bill must pass in the state legislature, and many don't think it will. So if nothing happens, none of us have any reason to be upset, right? But even if this particular plan is not implemented, the intentions of the administration are what should concern students most.
Something that must not be overlooked is that this program was specifically designed to make sure that the extra $500 was coming straight from your pocket. As mentioned before, it won't be covered by Bright Futures, a program that enables thousands of students to attend college when they couldn't have afforded it otherwise. I know I would have struggled had it not been for my Bright Futures scholarship, though I probably would have been able to get by.
Unfortunately, many other students wouldn't be able to come up with that extra $500. I hope that when Hitt and his colleagues decided to endorse this plan, they realized that they would be taking away thousands of Floridians' opportunity to get a college degree.
Finally, let me say something to the students who don't think that I should criticize the administration publicly.
It's not disrespectful to ask questions and raise doubts. It would be more troubling than even the Academic Enhancement Program if a student here were to complete four years of classes and believe that asking questions is inappropriate.
I'm not someone who seeks to find fault with the administration when they have done nothing wrong, and I'm not someone who thinks that they have it out for us students. Indeed, I have been satisfied with most of the decisions that they have made during my time at UCF, and I'm very happy to have had the chance to attend this university.
But when they make these kinds of decisions, those that make me question if they have the best interests of the students in mind, it is the responsibility of each and every student to question them.
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