A little from the Dakota Student:
DS View: Represent
Tuition freeze loses in ND. Student representation in question.
Editorial Board
Issue date: 2/13/09 Section: Opinion
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Earlier this week, the North Dakota state Senate struck down a bill by one singular vote that would have provided a tuition freeze for North Dakota university students. The bill, which was proposed by District 42 Sen. Mac Schneider and asked for an original $26.5 million in funds over two years, failed in a 22-21 vote. By the time that the bill was rejected by the Senate, the bill had already evolved into a weakened version that limited the freeze to two-year institutions. Critics of the tuition freeze lampooned the legislation as an unnecessary allocation for a higher education system that already demands too much of North Dakota taxpayers. They lumped their issues with the tuition freeze into larger arguments against the spending habits of the North Dakota University System, bitter about an institution that has simply increased its funding requests based on the state's considerable surplus.
Despite opposition to the bill, we were painfully close to securing a tuition freeze that would have helped students at UND significantly, even in its second form (the bill would have capped tuition increases for four-year institutions at four percent).
It is reasonable to believe that the vote could have turned out very differently, given the right circumstances.That's why it is upsetting that students didn't prod legislators more during the weeks before the vote took place. Information has been abundant about the proposal of the tuition freeze, especially in the Grand Forks area (given that Sen. Schneider represents the area that includes the UND campus). Student government sent out an email that pleaded students to become more involved in the North Dakota Student Association specifically regarding the tuition freeze, given the neutral stance that NDSA had taken on the issue. Attendance increased at the NDSA meeting in Bismarck that week, but it seems enough wasn't done prior to the voting.
As an organization designed solely to represent the students in North Dakota, a bit of a disconnect seems to exist between the purpose of NDSA and their decision to stand neutral on the tuition freeze.
There are very few possible legislative actions imaginable that would directly serve North Dakota students more effectively than a tuition freeze; it was a policy issue that constituted a significant piece of the campaign platform for both parties in the District 42 elections, and we elected our current representatives specifically to bring these types of issues to the state table. A neutral stance does nothing for students, it simply states that we, as students, do not care and if that is true there is no point to an organization like NDSA.
Sen. Schneider did his job, as promised, but it seems like NDSA and those who would have supported a tuition freeze did not live up to their part of the bargain.