SGA addresses tuition-hike concerns in rally for education

“It was to inform students, (and) faculty, and to unite them and the administration,” said Shivani Gupta, the 2002-2003 president of the Student Government Association that co-sponsored Friday’s “Rally for Education.”

Discussing the rally Sunday, Gupta said many VCU students remain concerned that the legislature’s budget cuts this year were too severe.

“Are they (students) aware that 2,300 journals are being cut next year because the state has cut our funding so much?” she asked.

After the rally of 30 VCU students, Mireille Truong, SGA vice president, said the student government wanted to let the state know their concerns.

The rally’s goal, she said, was to reach “anyone who has any power in deciding what the budget’s going to be like.”

VCU’s overall budget was cut by more than $77 million for 2003.

Samantha Marsh, chair of the SGA appropriations committee, said the main issue concerned the financing of education.

The SGA would also like, she said, to develop a relationship with the Student Education Coalition that co-sponsored the rally and with the Virginia Education Association, which sponsored the march on the Capitol later that afternoon.

Last fall, VCU’s Board of Visitors approved a $300 tuition increase for full-time students. Students and speakers Friday addressed the tuition-hike issue.

“Tuition is really important to me, because I am having trouble paying for tuition right now,” Truong said. “A lot of us are struggling. I work and I do extracurricular stuff. I work for my university, and it’s really hard to pay for tuition.”

Gupta said she wasn’t discouraged by the turnout, which Marsh described as primarily SGA members.

“We got kind of moved over,” Gupta said, explaining that the original location was to be between the Hibbs Building and the W.E. Singleton Center for Performing Arts. “So, that decreased our turnout a little bit.

“I’m still encouraged. I think that even if we got one student a little bit more informed I think our purpose is served. We can keep trying. We can keep having rallies like that, educating our students. That’s all we can hope to do.”