What do the Florida legislature, the Board of Trustees and Student Government have in common?
They all think that you should pay significantly more in tuition, and each is responsible for votes that resulted in a 15-percent total increase just this year. The Editorial Board of the Alligator last week indicated that even our school newspaper believes making students pay more is smart policy, and we shouldn't feel entitled to an affordable education anyway. Less surprisingly, the UF College Republicans expressed similar enthusiasm for the hikes.
The UF College Democrats couldn't disagree more. Affordable higher education is not a wasteful entitlement, but a smart investment. State-subsidized higher education greatly promotes social mobility, giving people the opportunity to contribute more to society than they may have otherwise. Making education less accessible translates into a waste of human capital, which is critical to the prosperity of advanced economies. The coupling of cuts to merit-based aid such as Bright Futures and tuition increases only further sets back the middle class, which largely does not have access to need-based aid.
As public education in this state is strangled, it is becoming evident that the Republicans' efforts to make this state more business-friendly is in fact making the outlook bleaker for thousands of young Floridians.
Our leaders in Tallahassee have made their priorities clear: The interests of students and the middle class are not among them. Therefore, the UF College Democrats would like to affirm our defense of Bright Futures and condemn both the heavy tuition increases and constant cuts to education funding.
Ford Dwyer is a political science and history junior at UF. He is the editorial director of the UF College Democrats.
