The University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees approved a 4.9 percent increase in student fees Wednesday, giving its emphatic blessing to a proposal Governor Deval Patrick had slammed the day before in a last-minute letter and phone call to the president of UMass, Robert Caret.
The action, in a 15-2 vote, will raise fees for in-state students by about $580, bringing annual tuition and fees to $12,481.
Comments
I'm trying to figure out the point of this comment: "suggesting he might have come out against the increase largely for public relations purposes." This is a politician we're talking about. What other reason is there?
I vote we put U-Mass and all state schools under Prop 2.5%. They get 2.5% a year period unless the taxpayers vote to give them an override. It is possible to keep expenses in line with inflation. Keeping up with the arms-race in spending by the private schools is unwinnable. Those educations now are for the kids of the 1%. So for the rest of us the Trustees have to be willing to cut programs and staff commensurate with demand or removed from those positions for breach of their fiduciary duties. Educator, educate thyself.
What if Caret called Pee Wee's bluff and balanced the budget by getting rid of enough of the politically connected do-nothing "administrators" on the UMass payroll as a result of pressure from Beacon Hill? All of a sudden the increase will go through without a word from Pee Wee!