WUFIP defeat a success
I was afraid that the WUFIP referendum was going to pass, mainly because of the seg-fee raise, $96 per semester. While some have expressed an important point about the financial responsibilities of the undergraduate community, my situation as a graduate student reflects a different reality from Joe Student.\
My job is a 50-percent PA, which pays $14,855 across UW-Madison. In addition, I receive health care and tuition remission. These pay rates and benefits have been hard fought by the TAA over the past several years, just so we would see a raise for a couple hundred dollars per year.
My tuition remission does not cover seg fees, however, which must come out of my salary. In effect, then, any seg-fee raise cancels out, at least in part, the salary gained for my colleagues and me by a vicious battle with the legislature.
When I think of how I would spend $200 a year, I do not think about bars or Cancun. I think of my two young daughters. That money can pay for gymnastics for a semester for both of them. It can almost buy one plane ticket for them to see their grandparents.
""Large spending"" probably has a different meaning for the less wealthy students on campus. When you check out movies from the library rather than rent, wait to get clothes for your birthday and take the bus so you don't have to spend money to park, you will see what I mean. For the new Union South, I would have to say that paying for a climbing wall and another sports pub go beyond my budget.
Before another referendum on how students should spend their money, we should wait for more input from those who have to live within a budget so that their kids can have those things many ""Joe Students"" take for granted.
Richard Benton
UW-Madison graduate student Hebrew and Semitic studies
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