Iowa State’s budget for 2004 has been approved, and I think you can guess what that means for students — we got screwed, kids. We didn’t think it could get any worse after two straight years of double-digit tuition increases, but we were wrong.

The state continues to cut its funding to higher education, this year by $7 million. Of course, the deficit resulting from these budget cuts is passed on to students in every way university administrators can think of. You’ve got the obvious 17.6 percent increase in tuition for the 2003—04 school year, along with increases in health fees, computer fees and a particularly massive $115 increase in the student activity and service fee.

What could possibly merit so large an increase in activity fees? I can guarantee you I’m not going to receive any more services than I already do from this university next year. Unless they plan on using this money to avoid incessantly ticketing my car, I shouldn’t have to pay for things like DPS’ “services” to the ISU campus. They don’t provide me half the safety on campus I feel I should have, but by God, if my car is parked on campus for more than 20 minutes, they’ll charge me $15 for taking up space.

So what are students getting for more of their hard-earned money? A wider choice of classes to take? No — they’ve been more restricted than ever. More personal attention from professors? Probably not — it’s not like they have time with 150—200 people in just one class. An administration that actually understands students’ needs? Yeah, right. Better luck next time.

I understand the need to raise tuition and fees with inflation. Prices go up, and it affects everyone. I also understand the need to offer professors and other staff competitive wages to keep them doing good work at Iowa State. However, the ISU big-wigs who sit in their offices and have a secretary to answer the phone for them seem to have forgotten what it’s like to work for $7 an hour in most of their free time while taking a full load of classes — if they ever had to. Or is making $287,513 a year, like ISU President Gregory Geoffroy now does, more important than trying to ease the financial burdens of students?

I can’t pass these increases on to mommy and daddy — I’m paying for this all myself, like many other students do. That makes our money all the more important to us. I need as much of my income as I can wrest away from the government after taxes, social security and all that hoo-hah, but school loans are piling up, and it’s getting hard to pay my multitudes of bills.

The Board of Regents approved a two percent increase in Geoffroy’s salary for this school year, and now I need to work more at three jobs just to make ends meet because of the extra $918 I have to fork over for tuition and fees. Heck, I might even get to eat ramen noodles for dinner more often. My mouth is watering just thinking about it … yummy.

What could a $5,638 salary increase possibly do for a man who already made $281, 875? It’s seemingly a drop in the bucket. For students like me, it’s nearly three-fourths of my yearly gross income. It could cover an entire year of my tuition to attend this university. That amount of money has the possibility to change my entire life.

In a time of a budget crisis such as this, you’d think high-paid officials like Geoffroy, the other public university presidents and the executive director of the Board of Regents could find it in their hearts to spare their raises for a year or two and try to ease the burden on students. After all, no one is going to raise our salaries by two percent to make up for the money we’re paying out to raise theirs. But since they got their salary increases already, Geoffroy and others like him still have something they can do for students — give that money back to the university in the form of student grants or scholarships. The late, great W. Robert Parks, Iowa State’s longest-serving president, did so many wonderful things for our university and, most likely, that’s something he would have thought of himself.

However, the administration these days seems to care little for students’ trust. Parking and tailgating policies have been changed with nearly no notice or student input, and it seems these days the university is only in business for itself.

Iowa State needs to prove to its students that they are appreciated, and helping us out is the only way.