Congratulations to Thomas Goetz (Feb. 25). It’s about time someone acknowledged the wholesale robbery by our student fee system.

While taxpayers and students both refuse to pick up the costs of higher education, our leaders happily squander millions of dollars on special-interest showcase projects.

NIU continues to admit students, knowing full well they won’t be able to get needed classes. The situation will worsen as a hiring freeze hits the departments, already pathetically understaffed.

But there’s always money for such things as a $120,000 statue, a $1.5 million bus system, a Rockford branch, elaborate physical plant renovations and employment for corrupt ex-presidents of regency schools.

These things might be tolerable if the basics were taken care of, but as it stands, they’re a shameful waste and a near-perfect example of third-world public policy.

No one person or group should be blamed for the situation because it was crafted by a chain of self-serving incompetents that runs from the SA to Springfield, touching Lowden Hall and the Board of Regents along the way.

A wretched assembly line of mismanagement supervised by apathetic citizens.

I suppose we should vote in the ISA referendum March 7, but will it really matter? If we decide the ISA isn’t worth the $1 fee, the SA will only waste it, along with another $2 or $3 somewhere else.

Ken Goze

Junior

Journalism