In his State of the University address, NIU President John La Tourette said that NIU students were “just as satisfied with the education they receive here as students at other Illinois universities.”

In response to the president’s remarks, we at the Star decided to conduct a phone poll and talk to students on campus to get their opinions on how satisfied they were with their education.

And if our poll is any indicator, students across the state must be pretty dissatisfied with their universities.

The phone poll results showed 63 percent of the respondents were not satisfied with the education they were receiving. Only 37 percent of the 40 respondents said they were satisfied.

Randomly interviewed students across campus turned up similar responses. Among a wide variety of complaints, the most common voiced by students was the lack of class availability.

“I am a senior finance major and I was closed out of OMIS 338 (Principles of Operations Management) twice. Also, I was closed out of a Finance 320 (Principles of Finance) class this semester. I think NIU should increase the number of classes offered or reduce the number of students admitted to the business school,” NIU student George Burger said.

A large amount of students on campus were also unhappy about the ongoing campus construction.

“NIU cashed in their bonds and its burning a hole in their pockets,” said senior finance major Matt Milella.

He added, “They (the administration) should improve the school from the heart—education. Cosmetics will not make the school any better.”

Brian Varley, a pre-chiropractic major in his junior year said, “I’d give NIU an ‘F’ for money management. NIU spends far too much on construction and too little on bringing different departments into the school’s curriculum.”

Many other complaints made their way into the poll, demonstrating that student discontent at NIU is not just a two-issue affair.

Junior mechanical engineering major Jason Steczynski said “I give NIU an ‘A’ for persuading high school seniors to go to NIU for engineering by telling them that the engineering building will be on campus in two years … or will it be five years?”

Travis Pascavis, a business major junior, complained “the red tape makes it hard to get classes.”

That thought was echoed by Teresa Maycroft, a senior political science major, “I don’t like dealing with bureaucracy, waiting in long lines for hours and hours and the telephones always being busy.”

However, not all the comments were negative.

Pascavis was quick to temper any of his criticism by saying that “the teachers are pretty good.”

Giovanni Cubillo, a sophomore computer science major was more critical of students who blamed the university instead of themselves for their problems.

“So far I’ve learned that a lot of people don’t realize that they have to put more effort into it. When the weekend comes around they want to party but they don’t want to work hard in school.”

“I don’t like dealing with bureaucracy, waiting in long lines for hours and hours and the telephones always being busy.”

-Teresa Maycroft,senior political science major