Leah McBride’s April 1 article, “Tuition up, but who cares?” was, at best, an article illustrating one person’s opinion about student apathy regarding tuition hikes. I was surprised the Daily ran this article as front-page “news.”

Over the past four years, tuition increases at Iowa State have become a predictable event. Every year tuition increases. Every year students protest.

Every year students are ignored. I can remember many instances when large numbers of students came together to protest the tuition increases, and each time students were given the same message — your opinions don’t matter.

Can you blame ISU students for being unwilling to invest their time in protesting tuition hikes when they can be certain they will be disregarded once again?

The Daily has run articles in the past with such headlines as “Not a Big Surprise” indicating the expected tuition hikes.

One article even reported a regent dozing off during a student presentation to protest these hikes.

Leah McBride’s article quoted students stating they knew their needs and opinions were not a priority to the decision-makers.

Can you blame students for refusing to be involved any longer in this futile process? I certainly can’t.

Calling student non-involvement apathy is simply na‹ve.

No one can expect students to continually participate in a process where they are blatantly ignored and told they don’t matter.

Sarah Franklin

Senior

Animal Ecology