Plans to increase tuition costs at the University of the District of Columbia from $3,800 to $7,000 have UDC students up in arms - and rightfully so. A nearly 100 percent increase in tuition is not acceptable at any institution of learning at any time. A nearly 100 percent increase in tuition at a public university dedicated to open access is ridiculous.
UDC, which received its chartered in 1974, is dedicated to expanding the opportunities available for the less wealthy D.C. residents. The historically black college has always been mindful of its students, offering vocational training as well as baccalaureate and graduate degrees. Now the university's administration seems to have forgotten what the college is all about.
After several rocky years of questionable leadership, recently installed President Allen Sessoms is attempting to institute vast changes to the current structure of UDC. The vast changes, which prompted over a thousand students to protest, include upgrading the overall quality of education and splitting the school into a cheaper community college and a more expensive, higher quality, four-year university.
With the laudable goal of bettering the quality of education at UDC, Sessoms has counterproductively forced many students to consider leaving this venerated public institution. Sessoms will learn soon that college students, just like any other demographic group, do not have infinite patience. Accordingly, angry students who either cannot - or will not - pay the extra $3,000 in tuition will leave.
Without question, increasing the quality of education at any school is a worthy goal, but there must be other ways to do it. UDC could have coupled modest tuition hikes and changed other minor aspects of the university to provide better education and services to the school's students.
Radicalism in the name of change is not always a virtue. Especially during these difficult economic times - when many college students are already struggling to pay current tuition rates - Sessoms should have opted not to rock the boat for fear that too many students would fall out. Now he has done it and now the residents of D.C. will suffer for it.
UDC is not like any other institution for higher learning. It was founded on the premise of offering affordable education for everyone, no matter his or her financial situation. Sessoms has - willingly or not - moved UDC away from this original tenet.
President Obama challenged all Americans to get at least one year of higher education in his speech to Congress this Tuesday. Sessoms and the UDC Board of Trustees have made it awful difficult for residents of D.C. to meet Obama's challenge.
