Stop hitting us up for money---that's what our tuition is for!

In case you didn't know, The George Washington University was ranked the second most expensive higher-learning instutition in the country for the 2008-2009 school year by Business Week.

When attending a University that has a $50,357 price-tag, I can't help but find an underfunded library disconcerting and a bit insulting. If our tuition dollars aren't sufficiently funding our library, one of every students primary tools, I have to wonder what it is funding.

In the Hatchet's Jan. 22 opinion, Mandatory library fee is not the solution, Patrick Ford argues,

"The nature of the library donation is unclear to most students and parents, who are left unsure about whether the donation is the library's source for most, all or only a fraction of its funds. This needs to be answered before any changes are made to the fee."

Thank you, Patrick. I am confused. I am confused as to why the school administration is hitting up poor college students for a $25-50 donation when they could use a much larger portion of our tutiuon money to fund the library. There must be funding in the budget that can be trimmed down, even just a little, and diverted to the library fund.

Student Association Executive Vice President Kyle Boyer's plan to add a $25 mandatory donation to our tuition makes absolutely no sense. His argument that student funding will reflect a responsible and committed student body is ludicrous. All that Boyle's plan would shows is that the University's allocation of tuition funds is irresponisble.

I'll leave you with one final thought. While GWU ranks number two on the list of most expensive colleges in the country, the university doesn't even make the Princeton Review's 2008 "Best College Libraries" list. Yet neither Harvard nor Princeton, universities with the first and second best libraries in the country, respectively, made Business Week's "25 Most Expensive Colleges."
Hmmm.