Today is move in at MSU-Moorhead and we stopped by to greet the freshman, as well as speak with some MSUM students about how these cuts are impacting college students. First we spoke with Carson who tutors kids at the school and is a junior. He also is an Iraq War veteran with an extremely powerful story and has done his country and his state proud. He noted that the incoming class this year is going to be facing larger class sizes with less faculty on hand to help them through their years here at MSUM. A quick snippet (I was talking while Xavier was interviewing him, so some forgive any run-ons) with a picture from Carson, and we’ll get the video up when we get to internet access again.
"Why are we going to have tuition hikes? Well, we’re having budget cut after budget cut, and these make an impact. It’s a tragedy, it’s sad. Cutting education is just a practical way of not investing in the future, I know it’s a cliche and everyone in St. Paul says it every session, but of course if you don’t do anything to enact that, someone is not able to go to college, someone isn’t able to transition in to the work force. So when we look back and ask why we’re falling behind, we can look back and see that we didn’t stop having tuition hikes because of these cuts."
"Saying that education, or anything, has been held harmless is just a misnomer. Everything has been hit, we haven’t had a "tax hike"per say, but property taxes and fees are up. So we’re paying for it. The buck is being passed to the people who can’t do anything about it…We’re gambling on something coming along to fix this kind of magically, this current direction isn’t going to do it…If you’re not upset about this shortfall in these investments in higher education and schools, then you should be."
"If we want these great public services and education that we’re used to in Minnesota, then we have to invest in them….and it starts with the Minnesota state college system"
One of the things that makes this state so great is people like Carson who have already given so much, yet continue to serve the community in other ways. We owe him our thanks and we’ll have the partial video up once we hit Wadena, with the full interview tonight.
