While students still are paying to fix one broken student building, NIU should not make plans to build another one.

Even though there is no harm in dreaming, NIU should consider the available funding sources before actual plans for the proposed Student Life Center are drafted.

NIU claims it already is working on a shoestring budget, making cuts to accommodate only those expenditures which are necessary. Yet administrators say such a building “would have to be built out of university funds.” Or the other alternative mentioned is to fund the construction out of “some sort of student fees.”

At a time when student fee increases cannot balance the lack of state money and rising funding demands, why would administrators consider asking students to reach into their pockets once again to create a new student building while one already exists—the Holmes Student Center?

Student Association President Paula Radtke suggests that by constructing a new student building, NIU would be able to use the existing student center for more conference space. This is because a state law prohibits universities from constructing new conference space.

If this is the case, before NIU begins designing its grand plans to create a new student life center, it should ask the students if they would be willing to foot the bill for two “student” centers—one which would be theirs and another which primarily would be used as a conference center.