Page 4-Saturday, July 21 1979-The Michigan Daily
4Michigan Daily
Eighty-nine Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI. 48109
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 49-S News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Tuition hikes must
not keep out poor
T HE REGENTS approved the annual bad
news Thursday: tuition rates increased an
average 8.75 per cent fot the coming school year.
To top off soaring costs, additional charges of $23
for Health Service, $16 for registration, and $4 for
the Michigan Union and student space remodeling
will be incurred by students.
The price hikes are inevitable when viewed
realistically. Inflation has taken its toll on the
price of acquiring a college diploma, and this
University is not isolated from such trends.
Although state appropriations are increasing
somewhat in real dollars, the state's portion of the
University's support is shrinking.
State funds pay for about 59 per cent of Univer-
sity expenses, while tuition covers around 33 per
cent, and private sources finance the other nine
per cent. Realistically, the level of state funding is
not likely to rise significantly in the future.
However, it is hoped that education is considered
an even higher priority by state officials than it is
already.
Fortunately, state and federal financial aid has
been expanded in the last year. It is hoped that aid
can be hiked commensurate with rising costs.
Despite the relatively low cost of education here
compared to our prestigious peers, this Univer-
sity is expensive relative to many other public in-
stitutions. Maintaining financial aid and student
loan programs at the maximum level possible is
essential to keeping this school open to all
segments of society.
As a state-assisted institution, University
executives and Regents must exercise their
authority to keep costs low enough to avoid ex-
cluding less privileged students. Of utmost con-
cern to authorities should be eliminating waste.
But these activities must be undertaken with
great sensitivity and care, so as to avoid
judgement of services solely on a cost-efficient
basis.
Although this University rates as one of the best
privately-financed public schools in the country,
private support must take up the slack left by
declining state support. Students are least
capable of compensating for funding shortfalls.
Therefore, private contributions-mainly alumni
and corporate sources-are the logical alter-
natives.
But University administrators must not let
inordinate influence accompany increased
private support. Just as administrators are sen-
sitive to increased state control of University af-
fairs, private interests can be just as dangerous.
University officials must resist attempts by cor-
porate contributors to set the research agenda,
just as they do not permit outside parties to con-
trol the curriculum.
Executive officers made laudable state lob-
bying efforts which helped bring home the 9.3 per
cent inerease in state annrnnriations. Unlike the
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
I
I
Tuition hikes
TATE LEGISLATORS strug-
gled for a week and a half over
the state budget and higher
education approipriations before
finally allocating $146.4 million to
the University. University vice-
presidents this past week sweated
through cram sessions on the
University's total $584 million
budget. Thursday the University
Board of Regents, despite Regent
Thomas Roach's (D-Saline) careful,
last-minute examination, made quick
work of approving that budget,
which includes an average 8.75
tuition increase and a seven per
cent salary raise for faculty and
staff.
"They did yeoman's work in those
10 days," said Interim University
President Allan Smith, referring to
the legislators.-
STUDENTS ALSO will be
assessed other fees: $23 for Health
Service, $16 for registration, and a
new charge of about $4 for the
Michigan Union and the remodeling
of office space for student
organizations.
In-state tuition jumped more than
nine per cent for both upper- and
underclasspersons, while out-of-
state tuition increased a flat 7.1 per
cent. In-state freshpersons and
sophomores will pay $607 per term;
in-state juniors and seniors, $678;
out-of-state underclasspersons,
$1,820; out-of-state upperclassper-
sons, $1,960. Non-resident medical
students will be charged the
University's highest tuition rate -
$2,950per term.
The seven per cent salary hike is
the maximum allowed under
President Carter's wage and price
guidelines, but, said University
Vice-President for Academic Af-
fairs Harold Shapiro, "The most
critical thing is not wage-price
guidelines, but the limit of our fiscal
capacity."
According to Shapiro, the $64,000
deficit scheduled for the 1979-80
budget is the closest the University
has come to a balanced budget in
several years. Shapiro added that
the deficit should be erased by the
fiscal year's end.
Black English
T APPEARS that the Black
English case is far from set-
tled due to the Ann Arbor School
Board's decision to appeal U.S.
District Court Judge Charles
Joiner's recent ruling against the
school system. The Board voted
Wednesday night in a closed
session to appeal the verdict as
soon as possible because the
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"decision is too fuzzy," as the
board's president, Kathy Dan-
nemiller, said.
However, on Thursday Dan-
nemiller said the closed portion
of Wednesday night's meeting
violated the state's Open
Meetings Act. School Board At-
torney John Weaver said he
thought the meeting complied
with the law.
"RATHER THAN make
waves, we'll just have the board
take a public vote. It seems to me
verystrange that some people are
afraid to have this case ap-
pealed," Weaver said.
Dannemiller said the Board's
secret vote violated two sections
of the open meeting law. That law
requires public bodies to
deliberate in public and make its
decisions public. Dannemiller
further admitted the school board
unknowingly has been violating
those provisions for two years.
She added that the new vote may
change the decision since some
board members will be out of
town during the rescheduled
meeting at 4:30 p.m. today.
Judge Joiner's decision found
the school system at fault in
teaching standard English
without taking Black English into
account when instructing its
speakers. The judge gave the
school system 30 days to devise a
plan for identifying children who
speak Black English so that it can
be'considered in teaching. If that
is done, the judge ruled, the
dialect will not become a barrier
for those - children in learning
standard English.
Cable television
ANN ARBOR'S financially
troubled cable television
system may get a new lease on
life following the passage Mon-
day night of revisions to the city's
ordinance regulating cable TV.
Ann Arbor CableVision, the
company now running the city's
cable system, is some $4.5 million
in debt, and the city has been
trying to find a company willing
to take over the system.
TWO MONTHS ago, represen-
tatives of Daniels and Associates,
a Denver-based firm that had ex-
pressed interest in buying the
cable TV system, walked out of a
city council meetingdisappointed
after council refused to liberalize
the cable TV ordinance.
Revisions passed Monday night
include allowing the company
running the cable TV system to
set its own subscriber rates. If 70
per cent of the city's residents
ever subscribe to cable TV
however, council will again take
over the function of setting rates.
Another revision allows a com-
pany buying the system to ex-
pand the system to other parts of
the city at its own pace.
Before passage of the
revisions, the company would
have been required to lay a cer-
tain amount of cable per year,
but now it is only required to have
service available to 85 per cent of
the city's residents before the 15-
year franchise granted by the
city expires.
OTHER REVISIONS require
the company to connect Ann Ar-
bor schools to the system, and
force the company to make
available first two, and then four,
public access channels.
An official of Daniels and
Associates contacted yesterday
said the company was "still in-
terested" in purchasing Ann Ar-
bor's system.
He said that although the com-
pany knew of the ordinance
changes, it still had yet to see a
certified copy of the ordinance.
"A lot of things in the ordinance
are interpretive," he said. One
chapter of the ordinance which
the company disliked, he said,
was the requirement that the
company provide public access
channels.
He stressed, however, that the
company had made no decisions
on a purchase yet.
]
Week-in-review was written by
Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Slowik,
Editorial Director Judy Rakowsky,
and City Government reporter John