Following weeks of student debate on the University budget, the Undergraduate Senate voted Nov. 18 to present the Student Government’s budget policy to President Neil Kerwin and the Board of Trustees.
The Senate approved the SG University Budget Commission’s major objectives for this two-year budget cycle:
•increase financial aid by increasing the tuition discount rate,
•limit tuition increase only to cover necessary costs
•increase budget transparency, according to the commission’s budget report.
If there must be a tuition increase, SG advocates keeping that increase as low as possible, said 2013 Sen. Eric Reath, Chairman of the SG University Budget Commission and former SG comptroller.
“The Student Government is not standing here saying we want to increase tuition, absolutely not,” he said.
Members of CAUS were present at the meeting to convince SG that both groups could work together despite their different advocacy methods.
“Student Government and CAUS have a great potential to work together and a great potential to support each other in ways that maybe we don’t see outright,” Chris Litchfield, a senior in the School of Public Affairs and a member of CAUS, said. “I just want to speak to kind of dispel that rumor that we have to work against each other.”
CAUS’s reaction to SG’s budget proposal was positive, Litchfield said. However, CAUS will still fight for a tuition freeze, he said.
Senators approved of CAUS’s proposal to work together but made no official plans to discuss budget policy together.
“Members of CAUS were here today, and I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate their work,” Reath said. “They understand it. They understand what’s on the line here.”
sraphelson@theeagleonline.com
