Monday, August 29,1933
Pago 4
Daily Ncbraskan
Tuition increases warranted
as students' fair contribution'
Nobody is surprised anymore when
the NU Board of Regents raises tuition
rates. It has become an annual event
on this campus and students usually
accept the increases with little or no
dispute.
But the increase planned for 1984
85 may create some controversy. At
their July meeting, the regents gave
preliminary approval to budget guide
lines that call for a 1 0 percent increase
in undergraduate tuition at UNL and
UNO.
Students are paying $34.50 for each
credit hour this year and if the 10 per
cent increase gets final approval, they
will be paying $38 an hour next year.
For a student taking 15 credit hours,
that means tuition will rise from $517.50
per semester to $570.
A 10 percent increase may seem out
of line to some students, especially
since the cost of living has remained
relatively steady in recent months. But
considering the financial condition of
our state government, we find the tui
tion hike acceptable.
No one likes paying higher tuition.
But no one likes watching UNL's aca
demic standing continue to decline, or
its professors continue to be among
the lowest paid in the nation.
Anyone who has followed the news
lately knows the fiscal plight of this
university. NU's academic standing has
slipped and will continue to do so until
sufficient funding is provided.
That additional funding cannot and
should not come from the state's al
ready over-burdened taxpayers. Ask
ing for more appropriations is an easy
way out, but considering past successes
before the Legislature, it seems unreal
istic. In fact, we question the logic of ask
ing for a 13 percent increase in state
funding, as the regents have proposed
for next year.
Nebraska residents already are pay
ing more taxes than they've ever paid
before. The state cannot afford to
make that tax burden even bigger in
order to provide additional funding
for the university.
Public support of NU is important, of
course. A strong university provides
benefits for the whole state and allows
students who can't afford private in
stitutions a chance to further their
education.
But taxpayers should not be expect
ed to carry the entire burden of increas
ed educational costs. Students must
foot a fair share of the bill.
If approved, the budget for 1984-85
will be just more than $465.6 million.
Even with the 1 0 percent increase, tui
tion is expected to account for only 8
percent of that amount.
It is not unreasonable to ask stu
dents to pay for that small portion of
the bill.
con't ltuncJ...i but
what do X ar.t for it
Vietnam haunts even those who didn't Ho
"The day I turned 1 9, 1 went down for my physical
and had my first and only experience of Army life. I
took with me a letter from Dr. Murphy, my child
hood doctor, describing in incompromising detail
the asthma that had been a major part of my life up
X Bob Greene
to 16."
Thus begins an article by Christopher Buckley in
the September issue of Esquire magazine an arti
cle that should spur millions of members of a gener
ation of American men to question a part of their
lives that they had thought they put behind them
long ago.
Buckley the son of conservative columnist Wil
liam F. Buckley Jr. describes in the article how he
hacl received a medical deferment from the Army,
and thus how he had escaped going to Vietnam. The
article is titled "Viet Guilt," and it addresses itself to
those millions of young American men who did not
go to Vietnam and who are beginning to realize,
all these years later, that by not going they may have
proved something about their own lack of courage.
Enough words have been devoted to the moral
issues of the war. The point Buckley makes is that, if
the truth were really to be told, most of the men who
managed to stay home from Vietnam did not do so
for reasons of morality alon
Young men of my generation got out of Vietnam
because of college deferments, because of medical
deferments, because of having a "lucky" number in
the Selective Service birthday lottery that was
initiated toward the end of the war. Three million
men of fighting age went to Indochina during the
Vietnam War; 16 million men of fighting age did not.
Buckley was one of the men who did not and I
was, too. Reading his article made me realize the
truth of the emotions I have been feeling lately
about that particular subject.
Those of us who did not go may have pretended
that we had some moral superiority over those who
did, but we must have known even back then
that that was largely sham. A tiny, tiny minority
served jail terms the rest of us avoided the war
through easier methods. The men who went to Viet
nam were no more involved with the politics of the
war than we were. They were different from us in
only two important ways: They hadn't figured out a
successful way to get out of going, and they had a
certain courage that we lacked.
Not "courage" as defined the way we like to define
it; not "courage in the same sense of opposing the
government's policies in Vietnam. But courage in an
awful, day-to-day sense; courage in being willing to
be over there while most of their generation stayed
home.
When I meet men my age who are Vietnam vete
rans, I find myself reacting the same way Buckley
indicates he does. I find myself automatically feeling
a little lacking.
Continued on Page 5
Larry Sparks
Daniel Shattll
Kitty Policky
Tracy L. Baavari
Kelly Grostoehme
Mlchieia Thumin
Wary Behne
Terry L. Hyland
Mona Z. Koppelman
Thorn Gabrukiewlcz
Chris Wtlsch
Jefl Goodwin
Mike Frost
Ward W. Triplett III
Lorrl Monger
Dave Bentz
Craig Andresen
Mary Contl. 472-6215
Don Walton, 473-7301
Kirk Brown
Jell Buettner
Janet Chu
Kris Mullen
Jim Rasmussen
Vlckl Ruhoa
Cindy Sayler
Dulcfe Shoenar
Terl Sparry
Janet Stslanskl
Lorl Sullivan
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Used book prices climb past original cost
Nebraska Bookstore should be more
accurate when it punches or marks
out the prices of books.
Last semester in the bookstore, I
bought a copy of "In Our Time" by
Ernest Hemingway.
Charles Scribner's Sons published
7 '
) Bill Alien
this particular edition in 1970.
The used paperback cost me $3.
On the back cover, the store had
tried to clip out (with a paper punch)
the original price.
But a dollar sign followed by : ro
showed the book originally had sold
for less than $3.
So, a 13-year-old used book that
originally sold for two something cost
$3 at the Nebraska Bookstore.
Somehow that doesn't seem right.
Mark Oppegard, manager of the
store, said that under the store's billing
system, used books always are priced
25 percent off the current new price of
the book's latest edition. That means
the new price of the "In Our Time"
paperback was $3.95 when I
purchased my used copy, he said.
When I bought the the used copy, I
still was saving $1 off the new book
price, Oppegard said. So, I bought d
13-year-old book for $3 that originally
sold for less than that and because of
the genius of a modern billing system, I
still was saving $1.
Somehow that doesn't seem right.
After all, a used book is a used book
and should sell for less than a new
book, or at least less than 75 percent of
the new book price
Siobhon Murner, a trade sales
assistant for Charles Scribner's Sons,
said the publisher's policy states that
the suggested retail price stamped on
a book is not binding.
She did agree, however, that
charging more for a used book than
what it originally sold for is not good
business.
Oppegard said Nebraska Bookstore
would buy the paperback for 50 cents
So, a 1 3-year-old book, bought for $3
that originally sold for two something
would be bought back by the bookstore
for 50 cents, then sold again for 25
percent off the current list price of a
new book.
Somehow that doesn't seem right.
Unless you own a bookstore.
Of course, it's easy to put all the
blame on the big guy, the system in
this case, the Nebraska Bookstore.
Oppegard said there is no other
feasible way, at this time, that his
company can handle the pricing and
record keeping.
Students might turn to themselves
for help.
The ASUN book exchange attempts
to reduce book prices, but isn't widely
used by students. Whether this is the
students' or ASUN's fault is hard to
say.
The fact that ASUN provides the
exchange but it is not widely used is an
example of apathy on the part of
students. It also shows the
ineffectiveness of the student
government in rallying students
behind its ideas.
It's a two-way street in which
neither side is completely right, but
both enjoy criticizing the other.
Or perhaps this column is way off
base and no one really cares about the
price of books, or even tuition, for that
matter. And maybe nobody cares that
a 13-year-old used book cost more
today than it did originally.
Somehow that doesn't seem right.