In a time of ever-increasing tuition costs and ever decreasing financial aid, one would expect a university to exhibit some fiscal responsibility. That is not the case here at Marquette University. While I might be nitpicking, I believe that the administration of the university should manage the costs rather than subsidize them with tuition increases.
My case in point: On Oct. 21, I was studying at the Bridge in the John P. Raynor, S.J. Library, when tours of the library began. In a course of 12 minutes, from 11:13 to 11:25 a.m., there were nine separate tours. Each tour contained four to eight people, mainly prospective students and their families, and at one point there were five tours going on at the Bridge at the same time!
Each of these nine tour guides is paid by Marquette University from tuition money that you and I are paying. While I understand that the job is important to expose the university to prospective students, increasing groups from four people to groups of 10 to 12 would save the university money and not decrease the quality of the tour. By having larger groups, fewer tours are necessary and less money is spent on tour guides.
The Law School recently remodeled an area in the student lounge to make room for limited food service and a coffee shop. What the law school failed to consider were simple economic principles. Case in point, the new coffee shop offers 20 ounce bottles of soda for $1.57. Not a great deal, but not bad either. However, if you have two legs you can walk 12 feet to the vending machines and purchase the same 20 ounce bottle of soda for $1.
Economic principles tell you that in the end students will not buy from the coffee shop, and instead will purchase all of their sodas from the vending machines because of the lack of competitive pricing in the coffee shop. So what do we have in the end? We have another waste of hard-earned tuition dollars by the university. The administration used tuition dollars to remodel the area, purchase equipment and pay the students who work there, as well as the increased electrical costs of the multiple new sources and the cost of the contractors to make the renovations.
In the end, the principles of economics will have one of two results. Either the coffee shop will reduce its prices to become competitive with the vending machines or the coffee shop will be shut down. Why waste the time and effort that went into renovating the space if the shop will not be competitive from the beginning.
The result is another waste of tuition dollars here at Marquette University, a waste of tuition dollars that will result in another increase in tuition next year, the following year and the year after that.