Emerson costs too much. That’s not controversial, 62% of Emerson students receive some kind of financial aid to help with the cost. It’s a well known and publicized issue. Why, then, did the College raise Emerson’s price tag 5% last semester without raising financial aid? Maybe Emerson didn’t have enough money to shoulder their new debt from the Little Building, maybe they wanted to buy the former Griddler’s for $1 million, maybe… Or, maybe the people who run Emerson are greedy assholes. That could be possible too. The truth is, the college never asked us. They might’ve let us know through Lee Pelton’s email or maybe they told the SGA representatives that some 30 of our classmates voted for whenever voting happened. I don’t know, I live off campus like at least half of us and always seem to miss the memo. Maybe I’m just uninformed. Maybe you believe their official reasoning for the tuition rise. But, do you think what they told us is what they presented to the board? Shouldn’t they tell us that? Emerson College never asked permission before raising our tuition. If they had, maybe we would know why, and maybe we would have decided it wasn’t worth it.
So, why does College cost so much? Why raise tuition at all? If you listen to Lee Pelton TV, you’d hear how college is an inefficient service that costs too much by nature. The idea is that instead of costing too much, college is too cheap for what we get. “Financial Aid hasn’t risen this year but it’s largely kept up with rising tuition rates” is practically the Party Line (repeated by Lee Pelton himself on WBUR last semester). But we were never asked if we wanted the extra buildings, or the Alexas in the elevator, or new Macs, or flourishes designed by outside marketing firms. Maybe if we didn’t buy those things we wouldn’t have had to raise tuition. We might have decided to trade a couple grand each for new space for orgs or for the e on our desktops, but the point is we never got a choice. Sometimes we ask nicely during the president’s office hours. Sometimes we put together protests that demand change and sometimes they listen to at least some of our demands but they don’t always. Sometimes they choose to ignore us. We don’t have that choice. We have to pay.
We can choose whether to go here or not, but either way we’re at their mercy. Not all of our credits transfer and if we don’t finish we have nothing to show for our money. For many that isn’t really a choice. Sometimes you need to cough up the extra 5%. Why? Our money is paying for the school and for the salaries of the people running it. What if we all stopped paying? What if we had voting representation on the board in exchange for our money and could all veto every decision? What if whoever decides to buy new buildings had to tell us why we needed it, and how much it would raise our tuition, and we could say no? What if we banded together and said no more tuition raises? What if they asked permission before they used our money, or we all stop paying? What if they needed to listen? Let’s unionize Emerson Undergrads. Let’s start today.
Emerson College Student Union 