Letters

Raising student fees is necessary

It seems that the current battle over USAC funding requires the
council and student body to take a broader perspective on the
situation regarding student fees at UCLA.

While it would hardly be easy to advocate for increases in the
cost of education, comparable to most institutions of the same size
and stature UCLA students receive a remarkable bargain. For about
$7 a quarter, students get free meeting rooms for their groups,
social and eating facilities, and remarkable programming (culture
nights, on-campus concerts, etc.) It is often the case that
students aren’t aware of how these things are paid for and
take them for granted as a part of “organic” campus
life. Take a look around similar campuses and you will see that
students pay upwards of $50-100 a quarter or semester for their
student association fees.

Fighting with ASUCLA may reap a few thousand dollars or so, but
the problem has been around much longer than the current fiscal
crisis. The current slash is appalling considering that in my terms
as a council member, I recall the budget hovering around $240,000
““ which was already a reduction from that time.

About six years ago, ASUCLA was about to go under, and students
knew that would be bad, so USAC bit the bullet and agreed to go
forward with an increase in fees to help float the sinking ship.
With remarkable speed, ASUCLA paid back its bail-out loan to the
university and has been trying to become profitable ever since.

Now there seems to be wonder as to how USAC can help fund these
critical programs and services. The reality is that these fees
should have been raised incrementally years ago (prior to the
ASUCLA fee, it had not been raised since the ’80s).

As we watch Governor Davis slash and burn critical programs for
education, children and families in California, we would hate to
see the same fate with USAC and student programs. Just as Davis
should raise taxes rather than compromise an already tattered
public education system, students should support and ask their
representatives in USAC to support a fee increase to support these
vital programs that serve UCLA and the surrounding community (via
community service projects, tutoring etc.).

Stacy H. Lee UCLA alumna Class of 1999

Council can’t have their cake and eat it
too

It never ceases to amaze me how corrupt, appalling and dirty
USAC actions can be when dealing with student fees (“USAC
rejects slashed budget for 2002-03,” News, May 22). Then
again, this should come as no surprise with the knowledge that
Student Empowerment! is running the show. This is the same
coalition of student groups who advocated for the creation of a
union to represent temporary workers of ASUCLA. Ironically,
Empowerment! is also the coalition of student groups criticizing
ASUCLA for cutting its funding to USAC in order to accommodate the
potential creation of a union. I should also note that Empowerment!
student groups are the ones who stand to lose the most in a reduced
budget. If you add that up, you can smell something fishy in the
air. Empowerment! wants the creation of a union and a normal
discretionary fund budget of around $130,000. But that’s not
possible because ASUCLA cannot afford it. Council members on the
Empowerment! slate don’t seem to comprehend this concept very
well. No wonder ASUCLA Executive Director Patricia Eastman left the
council meeting in an aggravated mood. She’s better off
explaining the situation to a five-year-old kid than a group of
“college-educated” council members who are bent on
achieving their social agenda at all costs. What’s even more
disturbing is the council’s secret session after the general
public meeting. Their secret gathering appears to be in violation
of the council’s bylaws, media law and state law. What did
the council have to discuss that warrants the exclusion of the
public? I hope that next year’s council can bring back
respectability to USAC.

Chey Tor

Third-year
Political science

Rational thinking found in conservative
voice

Many thanks to Simon Perng (“Battles’ attacks on
Dahle, Republicans inaccurate,” Viewpoint, May 22) for
voicing the single most unpopular opinion on American college
campuses: leftism, despite what it may have once stood for, has
become an intolerant stifler of conservative sentiment on
campus.

Cries of racism, intolerance, and insensitivity are flung
about with complete disregard for the facts. For decades now,
conservatism and the Republican party have been portrayed as the
causes to any and all of everyone’s problems despite the fact
that it is the liberal policy now in place that has managed to
corrode our schools, foster a culture of victimhood and
irresponsibility, incite class warfare, and bloat every government
in the nation to the point of critical mass.

If this school, state, and nation cannot learn to at least
consider conservative solutions to our problems, we will get
nothing but more wasteful spending, and our public coffers will
continue to swell and rupture public money.

J. Daniel Williams First-year Chemical
engineering