To the editor:

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand big-school finance, and I certainly don’t want to see Iowa universities get the shaft from the statehouse.

Still, something in all the recent controversy has me puzzled. There have been a number of articles stating that certain departments will have to eliminate faculty positions and close programs or raise tuition a whopping 12 percent due to these funding cuts.

According to the March 21 Daily, Iowa State is still getting all the basic funding we always get, $263 million next year.

What’s being cut is an appended amount “to finance strategic planning goals and priorities, for library and academic information-technology expenses and for other general university expenses such as inflation and mandatory cost increases in utilities and materials.”

Iowa State is asking for $21.5 million, of which the legislature proposed $10.6 million. This sounds like a discretionary slush fund if ever there was one.

This is a very small amount of money being cut from outside our regular budget. Why, then, are faculty positions and programs being cut? Why were these things paid for by money set aside for planning, inflation, and utilities?

If the university’s mission is education, why is education the first place the university looks to make cuts?

Where else could we be looking for this money? How much could be saved by turning the heat down?

Is this whole budget crisis just one more example of the university putting many priorities above education?

Chris Choukalas

Graduate student

Psychology