In your July 22 article you took the hard-line position that financial aid inhibits the overall quality and integrity of our school, going so far as to accuse the administration of spending "extravagant amounts of money on projects of dubious academic value."
Not only do I disagree wholeheartedly with your sentiments, but I ask you to step outside the overdramatic pitch of your argument to actually consider writing with statistical analysis.
As a student who attends Western full-time on financial aid, it should come as no surprise that I do not find the Higher Education Act as a "perverse inversion" of the original intent.
To me, the HEA stands for an opportunity I would otherwise not be entitled to. It allows me to go to college on my single mother’s income.
What I find most disheartening about your article is that you fully intend to abolish this service, to throw it in the "ash heap of history."
No amendment. No discussion. Just abolishment.
Should hopeful students not be given the same opportunities you were granted simply because they cannot afford it? Shouldn’t it at least be discussed before you weigh in with your be-all end-all position?
Financial aid, while serving as a crutch, is a necessary evil to bring in students of diverse economic walks of life.
I suppose that’s a moot point however, considering one of your previous articles denounced this University’s diversity despite failing to provide a single student account or statistic in support of your claim.
Here, your argument is no different. You make a lot of unsubstantiated claims in this article. You claim that faculty size and income have inflated, that the university no longer has academic aims for the money they receive, that our faculty has become inefficient, that public art and computer labs are unnecessary, and that certain current curriculum are worthless to student learning – and those are just a few!
Nowhere in the middle of these accusations is there a shroud of factual basis for your writing. Not a single stat indicating misuse of this university’s subsidized funds.
Yet again the article lies solely in conjecture.
Instead you provide a non-stop and somewhat abrasive attack on everyone.
I can’t say I’ve favored every decision this college has made, but I would never go so far as to claim that all tenured professors are "inefficient."
What you’re doing is a zero endgame rant on everyone from the faculty, to the federal government, to the very students who accept financial aid.
Who exactly determines what is "rampant academic self-indulgence?" And what stands as an unnecessary field of study anyway?
You denounce Fairhaven to be a "non-essential" field of study. Are you suggesting that you somehow understand what subjects are important and which are not? If students are attending these classes and learning the material then how can you favor scrapping them?
I’m also not saying Western should be allowed to spend money without recourse. No governing body should be left unchecked, especially when money is involved; but you have taken this issue and provided an unfair solution by calling for an end to all financial aid.
Western students already have a student representative on the board of trustees to speak on behalf of our interests.
Perhaps this isn’t enough. Maybe some sort of council or committee could and should be appointed. I admit that a position of this sort is a bit above my ability.
I enjoy writing, not working out a budget. But if we could appoint students to oversee Western’s expenditures – students who are as passionate as you – perhaps we could use the money to better benefit more students’ needs.
What is not going to help is berating the officials who help many students receive an otherwise impossible education.
Please, step outside yourself for a second and calm down. Then find evidence for your next article and stop being so divisive.
This is a budget issue, not a human rights violation or the end of the world. Choose your words more carefully and please, for my sake, tone down the aggressive tone.
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