This is a very quick hit on the first part of a two part series in the Minnesota Daily on the survey of what students value and what they perceive the University as valuing and the difference between them.

Students at the University of Minnesota currently pay $3,750 per semester in tuition, $324.10 in student fees, and a $500 “University fee.” This brings the grand total of one semester of education at a land grant, state-funded university to a whopping $4574.10 per semester.

That is $9,148.20 per year before books and course-related expenses.

As a Minnesotan, I find this abhorrent. Tuition has nearly doubled since I graduated in 1999 and, as I’m sure you all know, incomes have not.

Strategic planning or not, big grant funding for research or not, it is the responsibility of the University to provide quality undergraduate education to our students and there is a pervasive problem at all institutions of higher education where intelligent, fantastic researchers are expected to teach courses but not expected to develop competency (to say nothing of expertise) in pedagogy (teaching).

This is a long-running problem. Teaching doesn’t bring in money, research does. The University needs money……and thus the cycle continues. Research gets priority over teaching.

The administration can spin things however they want. I went to the University as an undergraduate, so did many of my friends, we have all come to the same conclusions the undergraduates who were surveyed did.